‘Frightening’ report shows peak age for teen vaping in Tipperary is 14
The peak age for vaping among teenagers in Tipperary is 14, councillors were told at the December meeting of Tipperary County Council.
As well as this, 44pc of young people in Tipperary said they had vaped before, while 41pc of teens said they bought their vapes in shops across the county, raising concerns about the access to vapes among those aged under 18.
At the December plenary meeting, councillors were given a presentation by Marian Daly, Planet Youth coordinator, Fiona Crotty, and Stephanie O'Callaghan from the council’s community and enterprise section.
Planet Youth undertook a survey among 1,737 young people from 23 secondary schools and education and training centres across county Tipperary, with most respondents being aged 15 and 16 years old.
The Planet Youth programme is a global initiative that aims to create healthy environments for young people, councillors at the meeting were told.
The survey found that the peak age for teens starting to vape in Tipperary was just 14 years old, with one in three adolescents saying they started vaping at this age. 72pc of young people said they were 14 years old or younger when they started vaping.
Despite the fact that it’s illegal for shop owners to sell vapes to anyone under the age of 18, a large cohort said they got their vapes from shops.
41pc of young people said they got their vapes this way, while a further 19pc said they did it often.
In response, independent councillor Máirín McGrath said that some of the report’s findings were “startling”.
"It’s startling, some of the findings, but it’s a really, really important job of work,” she said.
The presentation also highlighted broader concerns around substance use and mental health among young people.
Pat English from the Workers and Unemployed Action Group said that some of the findings in the the report were “frightening”.
"Some parts of that presentation are frightening, when you look at the fact that one in four young people are thinking of self-harming or suicide, and that mental health is bad in 11pc of the people you surveyed.
"The rise in vaping in young kids is serious, they’re moving away from cigarettes and they’re vaping instead, but we don’t know how dangerous vaping is and it’s going to be a big problem for the next generation,” he said.
Fianna Fáil councillor Sean Ryan said that he has been working as a teacher for almost 30 years, but that the findings don’t surprise him.
"I look at the survey with the lens of being a teacher for the last 29 years, I’ve seen many of the findings, and some of them don’t surprise me,” he said.
"Vaping is a difficult phenomenon, it’s in schools, it’s probably not as ‘bad’ as smoking, but I actually believe it’s worse because now people can put things like THC in their vape, which is cannabis oil,” Cllr Ryan said.
"It is a problem right across secondary schools in this county and indeed in the country, and it’s something that is very, very difficult to deal with,” he added.
Independent councillor Shane Lee said that the report was worrying as someone who had battled addiction.
"Some of the statistics and some of the facts are very worrying and very alarming, and I say that as somebody who suffers with addiction, I’m 16 years in sobriety from alcoholism, and I can understand the strength of addiction and how it works,” Cllr Lee said.
"The most alarming part of that report for me was that 62pc of parents gave the children alcohol, and that’s the reality of today’s society, because we’re all running from fear, we’re all running from anxiety and we’re all living life in the fast lane.
“It might be no harm for these kids to see the raw reality of what’s happening in terms of wet brain or seeing people in treatment centres or people who are non-responsive from what has happened through addiction,” Cllr Lee added.
"Wet brain” is a term for a brain disorder called Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome, which is caused by a deficiency of thiamine (vitamin B1), which often results from alcohol abuse.
Fianna Fáil Siobhán Ambrose said that some of the findings about people under the age of 18 buying vapes from shops should be given to gardaí.
"I thought that was very interesting, that some of them were just walking into shops getting vapes, underage, and I wonder if you can identify the areas that these young people are from.
"Perhaps that information would be of interest to the guards, because if it transpires that a particular area are saying they could walk into a shop and just buy vapes themselves without asking for ID, well then I think the guards should be visiting some of those particular shops,” Cllr Ambrose added.
"This absolutely is food for thought,” she said.