Asthma and Respiratory Foundation Maori community liaison officer Sharon Pihema speaks with students at Te Kura Kaupapa Nga Uri A Maui about vaping. Picture by Paul Rickard
Gisborne has 29 vape stores — the highest per capita of anywhere in New Zealand — and it’s a number that’s worrying health workers like Sharon Pihema.
Ms Pihema is the local Maori community liason officer for the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation New Zealand.
She has been concerned about the sudden proliferation of vape stores in Gisborne for a while but was stunned when she learned the true extent of it via the Ministry of Health’s online register of specialist vape retailers.
According to the site, 29 of the 1200 vape stores throughout New Zealand are registered in Gisborne, albeit one of the stores trades in Hicks Bay.
The first vape shop locally was Shosha on Gladstone Road, which registered in September, 2021. It was quickly followed over the remainder of that year by 14 more.
Another 14 retailers registered last year and another one — Aberdeen Superette — registered in March this year.
One of the shops that registered last year was a dairy right next door to a vape store that was forced to close before it even opened its doors in July 2021.
The Discount T store was to be located in a building, now operating as a laundromat, diagonally across from Gisborne Girls’ High and just up the road from Gisborne Boys’ High. Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Horouta Wananga is on nearby Desmond Road.
Thousands of dollars had been spent on shop fittings and from the outside, the Discount T vape business looked ready to open.
However, there was so much public controversy that after talking to principals from three schools nearby, the landlord offered the store owners an early exit from their lease and they accepted.
By contrast, there didn’t seem to have been any controversy when the dairy next door registered as a specialist vape store just over a year later.
Ms Pihema said the proliferation in vape store numbers showed there needed to be more restrictions on how many were allowed.
It also showed that vaping was becoming a trend in its own right and had strayed far from the intended purpose of being an aid to help people quit tobacco smoking.
Conversations she had with schools and whānau in the community regularly featured people’s concerns over the number of vape shops now in Gisborne.
It was hard to even think of a dairy in Gisborne that wasn’t registered as a specialist vape store, Ms Pihema said.
“They’re within the law. They’re complying with what’s required of them by the Government but the Government needs to look at those regulations because what we’ve got at the moment is not working.”
She was particularly concerned about the impact of the vape trade on young people.
“We definitely need to look at where the shops are located when they’re close to schools.”
Young people were seduced by the attractive advertising and cheap price point of vapes, she said.
“The way it’s being marketed is very slick and very attractive to young people in terms of all the flavours, the patterns, the colours, the packaging, the names. Everything is targeted towards our young people.”
However, what young people didn’t know was that they were often sucking in just as much nicotine as they would be if they were smoking tobacco, Ms Pihema said.
Vaping was not only having an impact on their health but on their schooling, with many getting in trouble for vaping in bathrooms during breaks and having their vapes confiscated.
Much school time was being wasted by staff trying to manage the problem.
Asked whether she wanted to see the New Zealand Government adopt the same reforms as Australia had announced recently, Ms Pihema said: “it’s complex. Our countries have a different approach in terms of how we manage tobacco control and cigarettes.I know that we had our Smokefree 2025 goal that we’re working towards and vaping has helped us achieve part of
that goal.”
The Government needed to consider where vape shops were located, especially when they were close to schools, she said.
It also needed to look at issues around disposable vapes, which were the most popular with young people and which also had an impact on the environment.
The country meeded to try to steer a course back to the intended purpose of vapes, which was to help tobacco smokers quit their habit, Ms Pihema said.
The Australian Government recently announced it would ban the importation of nonprescription vaping products, including those that did not contain nicotine.
Minimum quality standards for vapes are to be introduced, including restricting flavours, colours and other ingredients.
Vape products will require pharmaceutical-like packaging and the allowed nicotine concentrations and volumes would be reduced.
All single-use, disposable vapes would be banned.
The reforms aim to make it easier for smokers wanting to quit tobacco smoking to get a prescription and to understand the contents of the vaping products they then buy.
Currently, a medical practitioner has to apply for authority to become an “authorised prescriber” of nicotine vaping products. Under the reforms, all GPs will be able to provide a prescription.
It is also hoped the reforms will curb illegal sales of vapes by convenience store staff to under 18-year-olds.
Tobacco companies, vaping lobbyists, and even some harm reduction experts have challenged the reforms, which they say amount to prohibition.
Criminalisation of any drug requires huge justice system resources and is ineffective in reduing harm, opponents say.