Strawberry Ice, Mango, Cookie Dough, Mojito, Blueberry Sour; do these vape flavours target self-respecting smokers, or do they sound more like a 101 kids-marketing naming strategy?
The government approved plans in November to ban the sale of disposable vapes, following in the footsteps of other European countries.
Health Minister Jennifer Carrol MacNeil has mentioned packaging, flavours and display as priorities for regulation. She specifically wants to protect young people.
Vapes are consumed by 8% of the Irish population, according to the Healthy Ireland Survey 2025. This shows a rise in use from 6% in 2022. Another 15% say they have tried them in the past.
15 to 24 year olds vape the most; 11% claims daily vaping, and 7% claims occasional vaping. If occasional vaping is the new ‘I only smoke when I’m drinking’, it remains a grey area for addiction.
Why vapes are bad for your health
The HSE lists the following negative health effects: nicotine dependence, sleep problems, mental health issues, damage to your heart, lungs and blood vessels, exposure to toxins, and less commonly injuries from batteries or nicotine poisoning.
These risks can cause heart disease, lung disease and cancer. Additionally the colours and flavourings can be significantly harmful upon inhalation. The HSE notes that there could be more long-term risks of vaping.
GP Lizi van Vollenhoven works in The Netherlands, where flavoured vapes were banned in 2024. She said:
“With cigarettes it took us a while before we discovered how dangerous they were.
“Nowadays things go more quickly , but we don’t know yet if vapes will have an effect on, for example, fertility, because the majority of people who vape now are not yet concerned with fertility.
“And we don’t know what the long-term effects are on kidneys. Everything that enters the body, exits the body – that’s largely the kidneys’ job. We just do not know yet.”
GP van Vollenhoven is in favour of vaping bans. She prioritises the dangers of vaping as a public health risk rather than vaping as an aid to help smokers quit.
“I don’t think it’s a good tool in that sense, because it is swapping one problem for the other. It seems like a smaller problem [than smoking], I agree with that, but I think it is just as scary.
“To reiterate: because they do not know what the full side effects are and because it seems to be extremely addictive.”
Vape regulation
Anecdotally, the popularity of vaping is evident on campus and in town. On every corner a student alternates between oxygen and puffing on a fruity USB-stick.
They do so despite varying awareness of the promised and potential side effects, which admittedly fails to include the effect vapes can have on your wallet.
It will do Ireland no harm to learn from countries who have already experimented with vaping interventions, albeit keeping complications in mind.
The first being that enforcement has proven effective in other countries in lessening vape consumption, but it has not caused vaping to disappear.
A year after the vape bans in The Netherlands, only a small reduction of vaping was recorded. This shows that regulation may slow consumption in theory, but in practice government intervention has a limited effect.
This is also evident in a 2024 study on public health intervention, that claims the effectiveness of policies and regulations for vape prevention remains uncertain (https://doi.org/10.1111/phn.13464).
The second complication of reducing vape consumption is that it may coincide with an increase of a similarly unhealthy product. So it was for cigarettes, and so it will be for vapes.
This likelihood is evident in Sweden, one of the few countries where Snus is legal. It is one of the top countries to reduce the consumption of deadly cigarettes, but Snus use is rampant. The side effects range from gum damage to lethal cardiovascular issues.
Perhaps we should have realised a seemingly harmless fruity-flavoured inhalation device would inevitably result in so many public health concerns and difficulties.
Health Minister MacNeil has her work cut out for her. She could consider taking up the habit out of stress. After all, a Passion Fruit Kiwi Guava vape sounds remarkably tasty.
