Australian high school student Matt* has never smoked a cigarette in his life, but he started vaping when he was just 14 years old.
Now 17, the young man does not want to use his real name in this story because he has kept his vaping addiction a secret from his family. He says he is not sure why he started.
However, he recalls that his first time vaping was in his brother's room, and from that moment on, he says it was easy to get them from his friends whenever he wanted.
"My friends and I started to really get into vaping tricks," he says with a laugh.
"But now I vape more on my own than with others. It feels like pressing pause for a moment during the day... I use it to escape from all the pressure that's going on."
Matt is one of thousands of young people under the age of 18 in New Zealand who regularly vape, even though it's illegal.
A survey by the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation and the Secondary Principals' Association found that 27% of young people had vaped in the past 7 days, with more and more starting to vape.
The ASH Year 10 Snapshot, which measures smoking and vaping behavior, shows that the number of students using e-cigarettes has jumped from 12% in 2019 to 20% in 2022.
To try and prevent more young people from getting addicted to nicotine e-cigarettes, health experts and schools are calling on the government to follow Australia's lead by making e-cigarettes available by prescription only or for sale in pharmacies.
But due to a small loophole, this approach has led to a booming black market.
Australia's E-Cigarette Black Market
Since 2021, e-cigarettes have been classified as prescription-only medicines in Australia. This means that nicotine e-cigarettes can only be legally obtained by adults who have a doctor's prescription to use e-cigarettes to quit smoking.
However, two years after the law was passed, people living in Australia say that e-cigarettes are just as easy to obtain, whether or not you have a prescription.
25-year-old Kate Price lives in Sydney, Australia, and she says she didn't even realize the law had changed.
"You can still buy e-cigarettes from tobacco shops and corner stores, and sometimes it seems even easier than buying cigarettes because e-cigarettes aren't hidden like cigarettes. They still display all the different flavors," she says.
"I don't think making them illegal has changed anything."
Melbourne-based photographer Archibald McGill says he tried vaping for a few days to quit smoking but found that it gave him headaches and hurt his lungs.
However, when he went to buy an e-cigarette, he says there was no mention of needing a prescription.
"In the central business district, you can't walk a block without passing a store selling e-cigarettes, so I didn't even know you were supposed to have a prescription. I just walked into the store and bought one, no questions asked."
25-year-old Lizzie Carmine is a New Zealander who recently moved to Melbourne.
She doesn't vape, but she says almost everyone she knows does—and none of them have a prescription.
"The stores are selling them illegally, so you can still buy them, but they don't have ingredient lists, and they don't advertise containing nicotine. So you don't actually know how much nicotine you're taking in."
Australia's Evident Loophole in Combating E-cigarettes
"The problem is that nicotine-free e-cigarettes are still legal, so retailers and manufacturers tear off the labels and repackage nicotine e-cigarettes, without saying they contain nicotine," says Emily Jenkinson, a researcher at the New South Wales Cancer Council.
"As a result, when law enforcement officers search a store, they don't know which ones contain nicotine and which ones are legal. They have to send them away for testing, which of course takes a lot of time and money and slows everything down."
An Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) investigation into the black market for e-cigarettes found that those not labeled as containing nicotine actually had the highest levels of nicotine on the market - if the levels were any higher, it would cause physical discomfort for the users.
Jenkinson suggests that the solution to Australia's black market issue is to make nicotine-free e-cigarettes available only by prescription and in pharmacies.
"Then, if law enforcement officers enter a non-pharmacy store, any e-cigarette products they see can be taken away, and any e-cigarette products not destined for pharmacies can be confiscated at the border without testing," she says.
Taiwan, China, recently did just that and banned all e-cigarettes, including the manufacture, import, sale, supply, display, advertising, and use of both nicotine-containing and nicotine-free e-cigarettes.
They also increased penalties for violations. Reportedly, manufacturing or importing e-cigarettes can result in fines of up to 2.65 million New Zealand dollars, while using e-cigarettes can lead to an on-the-spot fine of 529 New Zealand dollars.
Jenkinson believes that if New Zealand learns from Australia's mistakes, strict legislation can work wonders in reducing e-cigarette use among teenagers.
However, Dr. Jude Ball of the University of Otago's Department of Public Health in Wellington says that New Zealand is unlikely to follow the pharmacy-only route, as the Ministry of Health wants to support smokers in switching and avoiding any obstacles.
"We have the right regulations in place to prevent non-smokers, especially children, from using e-cigarettes while ensuring that they are available and meet the needs of smokers who want to switch, which is extremely important," she says.
"We have a lot of children using e-cigarettes, even primary school principals say it's an issue in primary schools. We clearly haven't struck the right balance, so we need to strengthen regulation."
Matt Burgess, Manager of Regulated Products at Te Pou Hauora Tūmatanui (Public Health Authority), says there are currently no plans in New Zealand to restrict e-cigarettes to prescription-only, as this would pose a significant barrier to existing smokers who use e-cigarette products to help them quit.
Proposed E-cigarette Regulations for New Zealand
The government launched a public consultation in January to update e-cigarette regulations to combat youth e-cigarette use.
Some of the government's proposals include limiting e-cigarette sales to R18 e-cigarette specialty stores, reducing nicotine content, and requiring plain packaging similar to cigarettes.
Ball says that these regulations are a good start but are far from enough, and she hopes to see a minimum price of over 20 US dollars enforced for e-cigarettes.
"We need to address the fact that there are very cheap e-cigarettes available, so there's no cost barrier for young people - unlike cigarettes," she says.
"So, if only more expensive e-cigarette products were available, it might not be a barrier for smokers. But it could be a barrier for children and young people," she adds.
Ball also wants to see disposable e-cigarettes completely banned, as these are typically the most popular among young people.
Scotland is currently looking into banning disposable e-cigarettes after Glasgow City Council voted in favor of reducing excessive electronic waste.
Ball also hopes to see targeted advertising and gamified marketing aimed at children and young people being cracked down on.
An example is Alt's promotion, where customers can get a free pod pack for every 10 pod packs they buy.
Most importantly, Ball suggests that changing the names of flavors and packaging to make them less appealing to young people is a good idea. However, restricting flavors is tricky, as they have found that people who switch from cigarettes tend to prefer sweeter fruit-flavored e-cigarettes.
"So we don't want to reduce the appeal of e-cigarettes to those who want to quit smoking."
What if these regulations create a black market in New Zealand?
"The tobacco industry has a history of exaggerating the black market argument to try to avoid regulation," says Chris Wilkins, Associate Professor at Massey University's SHORE & Whariki Research Centre and head of the Drug Research Team.
"But the black market is not a reason to do nothing. I always argue that if your regulation is too lenient, then you haven't really achieved anything by avoiding the black market, because your legal market has already produced all the negative effects. What's the point of avoiding the black market when you already have the worst-case scenario?"
Wilkins says that there is low-hanging fruit in regulating New Zealand's legal e-cigarette market before we come close to triggering a black market like Australia's. He says the key is investing in the enforcement of regulations.
"If you can't enforce these regulations, then introducing all these rules makes no sense, just like what we see in Australia."
"If retailers can get away with it, then it doesn't matter how many laws and regulations you have. They won't care."
All e-cigarette products must be notified to the Ministry of Health before they can be legally sold in New Zealand.
Burgess tells Re: News that the regulator continues to investigate non-compliance in the industry and responds to complaints about e-cigarette products sold in New Zealand, but these complaints have not yet been reported to the regulator.
"If the regulator confirms through investigation that the product has not been notified, it will educate the seller on the legal obligations under the law and require them to immediately stop selling the product. Any further non-compliance may result in enforcement action," he says.