Does Social Media have some Regulations for Vaping Products?

The use of Electronic Cigarette among adolescents is increasing at a shocking rate. As teenagers are increasingly being exposed to nicotine and other potentially destructive chemical substances of vaping, Public Health Professionals are concerned about reducing Electronic Cigarette use in the younger generation. As the online shops of e-cigarette are easily accessible, by simply searching E-Liquid near me, people are able to find the nearest possible options to buy their favourite vape!

Moreover, with the increases in the use of social media, people are now more exposed to all kinds of advertising related to vaping. Could this be a potential reason behind the increase in the sale of vaping products? Let us dive into this discussion and explore some facts relating to social media regulations for vaping products.

 

The Governmental Laws in Regulating E-Cigarette Advertisement

The Government have come up with laws to regulate E-Cigarette Advertisement previously. However, the extent of the restrictions is still debatable.

 According to Article 20(5) of the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU:

“A business must not publish or procure an advertisement about e-cigarettes or refill containers on TV or radio or on the internet or in a newspaper, magazine or periodical, or sell such a publication, or sponsor an event or individual with cross border effect.” 

This article provided the guidelines for the social media through the use of the word “internet”. However, the implications of it are still debatable. Moreover, products that were allowed to be advertised were non-nicotine according to the article were non-nicotine liquids, non-nicotine disposable e-cigarettes, non-disposable e-cigarettes designed to take only non-nicotine liquid, and medicinal products. 

Teenagers Engaging with Social Media

The majority population of the social media users is teenagers. Perhaps these facts are already known to vaping advertisement industry. The increase in the use of social media is turning teenagers the vulnerable victims of unregulated advertisement of vaping products. According to one study published by Stanford Medicine:

“…teens were asked to rate on a numerical scale how likely they were to use an e-cigarette soon. Teens who had seen more vaping posts said they were more likely to do so, and those who had seen more advertising (vs. posts from peers) were also more likely. Teens who had seen more vaping posts also had more positive opinions of vaping in general. 

What is News Saying?

BBC previously reported that Instagram was updating the rules to state that it will no longer allow paid promotions of vapes.

While the direct advertisement and paid promotion of e-cigarette with nicotine content was restricted, there was reported a mass unregulated advertisement of the vaping products recently. This included the influencers using e-cigarettes in an attempt to promote its sales.

The Bottom Line...

The bottom line is that marketers need to be more careful about the implication of the purpose of guidelines to regulate the e-cigarettes to develop responsible advertisements of vaping products.