An Auckland high school teacher says despite new regulations, the youth vaping epidemic is showing no signs of slowing down and is calling for better enforcement.
It comes as the first guidelines to support Kiwi youth to quit vaping will be released later on Friday.
Currently, around one in five New Zealand high school students are regular vapers, leading to widespread pleas for change.
Papatoetoe High School principal Vaughan Couillault told AM on Friday morning he wants to see the new regulations on vape stores within 300 metres of schools extended to existing stores.
The Labour Government had been trying to crack down on vaping with new youth regulations rolled out earlier this year.
Former Health Minister Ayesha Verrall announced in August all vaping devices sold in New Zealand will need to have removable batteries.
"This will make them safer," Verrall said.
"We also want vapes as far from the minds and reach of children and young people as possible, so any locations within 300 metres of schools and marae will be off-limits for new specialist."
The regulations came into effect on September 21.
Despite the new regulations, Couillault believes something needs to be done to make vaping less attractive.
"I think what I'd like to see in these guidelines is some sort of tightening of our existing either restrictions or enforcement regime to make things far more difficult for our young people to get their hands on in terms of vaping products and sort of de-cooling," he said.
"We need to make them less attractive. I understand the medicinal side of things for those trying to get off smoking. I get that from the Ministry of Health and officials who have concerns about removing it altogether, but per capita, I think we've probably got the worst use of vaping or really close to it of anyone on the planet, which is not a good look."
These comments come after new data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found 8.2 percent of people aged 15 or older regularly vape in New Zealand. This placed New Zealand second, behind Estonia, in the developed world.
Couillault told AM co-host Melissa Chan-Green he has seen no signs of the existing legislation being enforced.
"I haven't seen any evidence in my community and my community, like every other community in Auckland if not New Zealand, has a plentiful supply of vape shops wrapped on the sides of convenience stores or in bright and shiny places in malls," he said.
"I haven't seen any evidence of the accessibility getting more difficult for teens and I haven't seen any slowing in the vaping that my colleagues and I are dealing with every day in a school setting."
He told AM the youth vaping epidemic is having major impacts on schools.
"It's really clear, one in five kids in New Zealand weren't smoking, but one in five kids in New Zealand are vaping and that's the thing they're getting distracted by and that's the thing they're leaving class to do in numbers," he said.
"So, schools are being forced to take evasive measures. We are de-privatising common spaces and toilets. You've had commentary around cameras and vaping detectors and that sort of thing, so we're taking evasive action, but actually just chopping off the supply would help a great deal and also just de-cooling it."
Watch the full interview with Vaughan Couillault in the video above.
