Vaping is endemic in British schools

Originally vaping and e-cigarettes were hailed as a welcome smoking cessation device for adults – until the manufacturers came for our teens

You may not know what an Elf Bar is by name, but you’d almost definitely know one by sight. These brightly coloured, super-sweet e-cigarettes are everywhere: lined up behind newsagents’ counters; littering parks and pavements outside schools and colleges; behind a cloud of cloying vapour as you walk down the street.

Around 2.5 million Elf Bars are sold in the UK each week. They are prefilled with nicotine-infused liquid in flavours including cherry cola, watermelon and ‘blue razz lemonade’. Each contains 600 ‘puffs’ and, like most disposable vapes, roughly the amount of nicotine found in 40 cigarettes. They are particularly popular with teenagers – so much so that schools are installing sensors to catch pupils who are vaping. Pupils hide the devices in toilet roll holders, behind ceiling panels and under their clothes, and disrupt lessons by sneaking out to vape. Teachers are resorting to searches and suspensions; they struggle to stop students vaping in stairwells and flushing vapes down the toilets.

"They’re everywhere. We’re seeing it right down to year 7; it's endemic right across the school," says one secondary school teacher, a head of Year 10, who is speaking anonymously. "The impact on learning is catastrophic; students who were A-grade now have a distinct lack of focus, which we believe is caused by becoming addicted to vaping."

He says some pupils are distracted and agitated if they are not allowed to leave lessons to go to the toilet and get their fix.

A desperate plea from a teacher friend led Simon Hassett to design a specialist vape detector for use in schools. 170 schools have ordered the VapeGuardian sensor, which is the first of its kind in the UK. The data from schools that have it installed shows that children are being caught vaping an average of 22 times per day.

The Government promotes e-cigarettes as a useful tool for smoking cessation in adults, and recently announced free vaping starter kits for one million people in a bid to help them quit. But the number of children taking up vaping having never smoked continues to cause concern. In Australia, the government is planning to ban e-cigarettes and discourage vaping, especially among teenagers.

"Although vaping is generally much safer than [smoking] cigarettes and vapes include a fraction of the chemical products, they do still contain chemicals that are being inhaled into our deep lung tissue," says Gareth Nye, a scientist at the University of Chester with an interest in vapes. "The simple answer is we don't know enough regarding the long term impact on children."

Vape manufacturers are increasingly under the spotlight. In the US, the e-cigarette brand Juul reached a $462 (£367) million settlement with six US states, settling lawsuits that claim it aggressively marketed its products to teenagers. In the UK, Elf Bar – a Chinese-owned company now worth £322.1 million in the UK – has seen a rapid rise in popularity, but has already faced controversy.

In July last year, the company was reportedly flouting advertising rules by using paid-for influencer marketing on TikTok, according to an investigation published in The Observer. TikTok removed two accounts following the investigation, but recent evidence suggests the promotion of disposable vapes via user-generated videos has continued unchecked. The hashtag #ElfBar has 1.8 billion views on the platform to date. Elf Bar says it has now issued an "advertisement guideline prohibiting employees from advertising and marketing activities targeting minors".

It goes on to say that it has "registered our products with all relevant regulatory authorities" and that the company's "goal is to help smokers quit smoking and have a better lifestyle." It "does not endorse nor recommend the promotion of e-cigarettes on social media."

So why have Elf Bars proved so popular? It is easy to see how they have taken off among teens. They are far more stylish than the chunky refillable e-cigarettes historically used by ex-smokers, and have become something of a status symbol.

"[Disposable vapes] are available for pocket money prices on every street corner, and they’re currently packaged more like a sweet or a toy than a smoking cessation device," says Deborah Arnott, chief executive of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH).

In February, some Elf Bar models were removed from sale in supermarkets after they were found to contain outsize cartridges with over 50 per cent more than the legal limit of nicotine (in the UK, the limit is no more than 2ml of an e-liquid containing 20 milligrams of nicotine per millilitre). Elf Bar says the products, which are legal elsewhere, had "inadvertently" ended up on UK shelves, adding "Elf Bar has immediately ceased all production and distribution of the non-compliant products. We have actively co-operated with regulatory authorities and will also improve our internal quality control processes to prevent such issues from recurring."

Within the industry, Elf Bar is accused of being particularly opportunistic and, in some cases, irresponsible. "They’re not a member of the UK Vaping Industry Association and they have just come over and seen an opportunity. They don't seem to care so much about doing things properly in the sense that other companies have taken it into their hands to recycle their vapes, which costs them money, but it means they’re not chucking lithium into landfill," says Mark Oates, co-founder of the consumer advocacy group WeVape, which promotes vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking for adults. "There's a fear among people who choose to vape rather than smoke that [Elf Bar] is damaging how people see vaping."

Elf Bar says environmental responsibility is a priority, and that it is exploring ways for products to have a longer shelf life and easier recycling methods. It has already placed battery recycling bins in 70 UK stores.

The long-term health implications of vaping are unknown, but a key concern is that it causes nicotine addiction. Some studies have shown the products can damage the immune system's lung-clearing function, leaving chemicals to gather there unstinted, and there have been a number of cases of respiratory disease related to vaping reported in the US.

"Dentists are reporting increases in dental problems which are linked to vaping, and there is a potential that in 30 to 40 years we may start seeing a wave of chronic lung problems put down to the chemicals being inhaled," says Nye.

He points to glycerin and glycol, two chemicals used in Elf Bars and other vaping e-liquids. They are used in food colourings and are safe to eat, but there is no robust evidence on breathing them in: "We must consider that eating and inhaling are significantly different. The heating of these chemicals has been shown to lead to the formation of formaldehyde and acetate, which are both carcinogens. Whether this is significant or not we don't know, as [the] science struggles to keep up."

When approached for comment, Elf Bar said it "strictly adheres to domestic and international laws and regulations that forbid minors from buying and using our products [and] has a prominent nicotine warning on the product's package," adding that "according to the NHS, e-cigarettes can be up to twice as effective as other nicotine replacement products."

Elf Bar insists the company has "strict quality standards" and that it "works hard to ensure that all its products comply with the safety requirements of both the UK and the EU."

England's chief medical officer Chris Whitty name-checked the brand when he told MPs in February that e-cigarettes are "an addictive product" with "unknown consequences for developing minds… the rates of vaping have doubled in the last couple of years among children. So that is an appalling situation," he said.

Certainly, while young people who vape are in the minority, the number is increasing. The number of 11-17-year-olds who regularly use e-cigarettes rose from 3.3 to 7 per cent in just 12 months, from 2021 to 2022, according to the latest ASH survey. The number of children who had tried an e-cigarette rose from 11.2 per cent to 15.8 per cent. For the first time, disposable vapes were the most popular product, and Elf Bar the most popular brand.

Elf Bar says that to "protect teenagers’ safety and prevent their usage of nicotine in any form" the company has created the Lighthouse Guardian Program to prevent youth vaping and promises to release social media guidelines for protecting minors soon.

Almost half of 11-17-year-olds get their e-cigarettes from shops, despite the fact that it is illegal to sell e-cigarettes or vaping products to under-18s. They are sold for the relatively cheap price of £4.95 and are easy to get hold of without ID.

As a father, Hassett is gravely concerned about the normalisation of vaping among schoolchildren. "The average Elf Bar contains 20mg of nicotine. The presence of this highly addictive substance explains why so many pupils are finding it difficult to go through the day without vaping," he says. "We are unwittingly creating a new generation of nicotine addicts."

In April, the Government launched a call for evidence to counter rising vape use in under-18s and is said to be considering a potential ban on flavoured vapes and their display in shops.

There is no doubt that e-cigarettes are helpful for adult ex-smokers. But many experts are hoping that Elf Bars and other vapes loved by teens run out of puff.

For information and support on vaping, go to www.teen.smokefree.gov/quit-vaping and www.nicorette.co.uk