'You go anywhere and you can see kids as young as 12-13 with vapes'
Walking down any high street nowadays and you won't be far away from a vape shop or vapes sold in a supermarket or corner shop.
Sarah-Jane Downing said her 18-year-old son vapes, but the mum isn't a fan of them herself. She said: "To be fair, I don't like the thought of them because I don't know what's going on inside.Sarah said that both her and her son never smoked before, but through the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent lockdown, he picked up a vape as a coping mechanism. "He smokes it now and so do a lot of his friends," she added.
Derek Sawyer is a smoker and said he agrees that disposable vapes have been targeted towards children, but they are a good tool to get people to stop smoking. "I'm a smoker and I smoke a vape and I light up a cigarette every now and again," Derek told LancsLive. ASH also state that the promotion of vaping and children noticing this has grown. Only one in five children now say that they never see vapes promoted, which was down from 31% last year. This year, 20.5% of children have tried vaping which is an increase from 15.8% in 2022.
ASH state that proportion of people who have never smoked, but have tried vaping is 11.5%. Elaine Rowe started smoking at the age of 15 and now aged 55, she has no plans to stop.