Vaping

We recently recorded Kati and Ella, two of our Child Human Rights Defenders, in their preparation for the Scottish Government Executive Team Takeover 2025. We’ve transcribed the recordings and shared below are the children’s views on Vaping.

We are part of a group called Human Rights Defenders, and our main issue right now is Vaping. We’ve seen a lot of young children vaping, and many of them don’t fully understand how dangerous it is. That’s why we want to help fix this problem.

Vaping is a problem, why? There are two main issues we’ve identified with vapes: the flavours and the colours. First, the flavours: many vapes come in fruity or sweet flavours. Some children think these fruity flavours mean the vapes are healthy or harmless. Sweet flavours make it feel like they’re just having a treat—like candy—but they don’t realize they are actually poisoning themselves and damaging their bodies.

Second, the colours: many vapes are designed with bright, attractive colours that draw children’s attention. This makes them look fun or harmless, when in reality, they are extremely dangerous. A lot of underage people don’t understand the risks because they aren’t taught enough about vaping. Even outside of school, they don’t get much information about the dangers, so they’re easily misled.

You might be wondering how we got involved with this issue. Well, the idea actually came from other children across Scotland. The Children’s Parliament held a survey on important issues in Scotland, and vaping was one of the most voted topics. That’s when we decided we wanted to work on it.

After that, some members from the Children’s Parliament visited schools, including ours, to have discussions about vaping. In our classroom, we split into three groups: “Yes,” “No,” and “Maybe” depending on how much we knew about vaping. We were asked questions, shared our opinions, and wrote down our thoughts on big sheets of paper to see how much we understood.

We’ve also worked closely with the smoking policy team at Scottish Government and Public Health Scotland, and we’ve shared ideas while they were working on reducing harm from substances like vapes. Now, because of the new UK bill, you have new powers—and we hope you will use them to help protect children like us.

Here are some ways you could help:

• Create more smoke-free zones, especially in places where children are, like parks, schools, and shops. These zones should also be larger.
• Change the names of vapes that sound like sweet treats or fruits, which attract children.
• Ban certain flavours entirely and limit the kinds of vapes that can be sold.
• Change the packaging to make it less colourful and less appealing to young people.
• Hide vapes in shops, just like cigarettes are hidden. When vapes aren’t on display, children are less likely to see them and get curious.
• Improve education about vaping in schools so children understand the real dangers.

If vapes were harder to see and access, it would make it harder for children to start vaping in the first place. We really hope you will listen to us and take us seriously. All we want is to help keep children safe. Thank you for listening, and we hope you will consider everything we’ve said.

by the Child Human Rights Defenders