Meeting of the Parliament 31 January 2023 [Draft]
I completely concur with that. As I said, they are not there for that specific use or to be ingested in that way; they are there for the food impact.
I mentioned the attractive sweet flavours. Kids have to deal with peer pressure and people saying, “Go on—just have a try.” We know that that happens regularly. As ASH Scotland has talked about in the past, vaping among young people is now becoming a real danger. It talks about marketing and the use of significant measures to ensure that we do not have that. Vaping is being normalised and youngsters are seeing that it is okay, but it certainly is not okay. Young developing lungs and brains are especially vulnerable to the harms that could come from vaping, so it is vital that we challenge that marketing.
Vaping is also a huge problem for the environment. Last year on the BBC, we heard about the batteries, plastics, metals and stainless steel that are involved. The pandemic gave us the opportunity to ensure that there was a big noise about recycling and plastics.
In conclusion, it is now time to regroup, to put a spotlight on the issue and to make collective efforts to deal with the marketing issues before it is too late. Certainly, before we get to another health or environmental catastrophe, we need to take the issue seriously.
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