Vaping is a world disaster that’s getting extra youth hooked on medication. PHOTO: ST FILE
On Father’s Day, my household and I had been at a dim sum restaurant in Jalan Besar when a pair of their late 20s subsequent to our desk left.
Sitting on the steps exterior, on the pavement, they nonchalantly took out units cupped of their arms and vaped.
Perhaps they thought the possibilities of them getting caught had been slim, as Well being Sciences Authority (HSA) officers can’t be all over the place, particularly on a Sunday. Or maybe they had been of the view that since extra individuals had been vaping in Singapore, nobody would snitch on them.
READ: Smoking, vaping: Disaster worsening amongst PH youth
However I questioned in the event that they knew that as a substitute of getting a excessive, they had been really inhaling the breath of loss of life.
Vaping is a world disaster that’s getting extra youth hooked on medication, as crime syndicates pack potent and addictive substances into small units that appear to be pens or lighters.
The numbers are worrying sufficient for the United Nations Workplace on Medication and Crime (UNODC) to warn in a 2025 report that vapes, or e-vaporizers, now don’t simply include nicotine, but in addition cannabinoids and different artificial substances.
By now, you’ll have seen stories and movies of individuals in Singapore behaving incoherently, apparently from vaping, and the painful and costly lung-washing procedures some have undergone attributable to their addictions.
READ: ‘Yosi Kadiri’ returns to reveal the dangers in utilizing vape
You in all probability know of family and friends members whose research and relationships have been affected by vaping.
Vaping: The Invisible Disaster
That’s why The Straits Instances is launching our anti-vaping marketing campaign, Vaping: The Invisible Disaster, immediately.
It’s much like our Cease Scams marketing campaign, the place we publish stories on numerous sorts of scams and the way they work.
Why are we doing this?
We imagine there must be extra conversations in regards to the vaping scourge that has already crept into our properties, faculties and workplaces.
Some dad and mom advised ST about how vaping has torn their households aside. Others have reported their youngsters to the authorities. The proof reveals a vaping tradition has already established itself right here.
On Feb 26, Well being Minister Ong Ye Kung stated in a written parliamentary reply that there have been 2,000 circumstances of scholars together with these from institutes of upper studying (IHLs) reported for possessing or utilizing e-vaporizers in 2024.
That is up from 800 circumstances in 2022, and 900 circumstances in 2023.
In October 2023, then Second Minister for Training Maliki Osman, advised Parliament that though faculties and IHLs have elevated checks, it’s possible there may be under-detection.
And on March 3, Minister of State for Well being Rahayu Mahzam replied to a parliamentary query in regards to the variety of dad and mom who reported their youngsters for vaping. One such case was referred to the HSA, and the kid was fined $300.
Ms Rahayu suggested dad and mom who suspect their baby of vaping to name the Well being Promotion Board’s (HPB) QuitLine on 1800-438-2000. It’s a part of HPB’s I Stop program, which was launched in 2014 to assist members give up smoking and accepts those that need to cease vaping.
They won’t be fined or prosecuted, until they’re caught utilizing or in possession of vapes.
Worsening numbers
Within the first 9 months of 2024, about 9,680 individuals had been caught utilizing or possessing vapes. That is greater than the 7,838 individuals caught in the entire of 2023.
In 2019, HSA raids and investigations resulted in $95,460 price of seizures throughout the 12 months.
Based mostly on earlier stories, HSA had seized $41 million price of vapes from January 2024 to March 2025. That’s practically fivefold the reported worth seized from 2019 to end-2023, based on numbers compiled by ST.
This regardless of vaping being banned in Singapore since 2018.
Peer-reviewed journal Emerald Perception stated in 2024 that the variety of vape customers was round 82 million worldwide in 2021, with 14.3 million in South-east Asia. The worldwide vape market was valued at US$22.8 billion in 2022.
Like scams, vaping is a profitable commerce for prison syndicates, and they’re concentrating on our kids as clients.
Mature readers will bear in mind the glue-sniffing scourge within the Nineteen Eighties, when 23 individuals died throughout an eight-year interval.
Mother and father needed to lock their youngsters up for worry of them going to bicycle retailers to get their repair of glue in a can. Some addicts drowned in reservoirs, and greater than 1,112 abusers had been arrested in 1987.
If not tackled aggressively, vaping will develop into the glue-sniffing disaster of our present technology.
As a substitute of a can of glue, the menace now seems as Kpods, a vape juice laced with the highly effective anesthetic drug etomidate.
Etomidate is a medicinal ingredient utilized in scientific observe as an anesthetic agent and is assessed as a poison beneath the Poisons Act. This implies a license is required for its importation or sale.
Creating consciousness
How will ST be highlighting this social menace?
We might be reporting repeatedly on the impression of vaping, not simply in Singapore but in addition around the globe. We are going to give attention to how vaping has impacted your lives and people of your family members.
And we hope that by publishing these stories, it would educate the general public on how lethal vaping may be to your well being and psychological well-being.
Extra must be finished to deal with this situation as a result of, for now, it appears there isn’t any devoted 24-hour helpline or app for the general public to report vaping offenses and the sale of vaping units to the authorities.
At present, you’ll be able to contact solely HSA’s Tobacco Regulation Department on 6684-2036 or 6684-2037 from 9am to five.30pm on weekdays.
To deal with scams, the authorities have the ScamShield helpline on 1799.
The ScamShield app can also be geared up with synthetic intelligence, and may establish and alert customers to potential rip-off threats on WhatsApp, Telegram and net hyperlinks.
The same app to report vaping offenses would assist the authorities forestall vapes from reaching clients and establish vape customers faster.
The vaping situation is clearly being addressed by faculties right here. Some faculties have even issued vape advisories on Mother and father Gateway, an app that connects dad and mom and faculties on key administrative issues.
However this messaging must also be communicated to the general public to point out a whole-of-government strategy to deal with the problem, as even major faculty youngsters have been caught.
Underneath the legislation, anybody caught shopping for, possessing or utilizing vapes may be fined as much as $2,000. These caught importing, promoting and distributing vapes resist six months’ jail, a wonderful of as much as $10,000, or each.
All these imply nothing to the addict decided to get his or her vape repair.
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They need to know there isn’t any beneficial end result after they put a vaping system into their mouth.
And that every time they suck in these toxins, all they’re doing is blowing their lives away. /dl
