On Saturday the 1st of June England’s Disposable Vape Ban officially came into force. Businesses are now subject to a stop/compliance notice or a £200 fine in the first instance for stocking disposable vapes and an unlimited fine or prison time of up to two years for further offences. The ban is not public health legislation rather it was developed under Environmental Protection Act 1990 to attempt to reduce the damage being done by the lithium batteries present within disposable vape devices (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2025). With vaping in young people now being called a public health crisis it is worth exploring the evidence base to try and understand whether this ban could have any impact on vaping rates among young people.
A research study (Jackson et al., 2025) found that rates of disposable vape use decreased from 43.6% in January 2024 to 29.4% in January 2025 among young people aged 16-24 following the announcement of the disposable vape ban. Vape use generally had been increasing by 23.4% a year up until the announcement in which it stabilised in both adults and young adults and the proportion of vapers mainly using disposables fell from 63.2% to 35.2%. Certainly, these statistics suggest ban is likely effective for the reduction of environmental harm bought about by the batteries in disposable vapes. What is interesting is the plateau seen in general vape use statistics seen after the announcement. This was likely bought about by a combination of less people choosing to take up vaping and more people quitting altogether. This suggests therefore that the ban may have already had an impact on vaping rates in young people although it is currently unknown whether these rates have remained stable 6 months later. Taylor et al. (2025) in their editorial stipulate that the ban might have detrimental effects on vaping in young people. They argue that in an age of misinformation about the harmful effects of vaping that young people may interpret the ban to mean that cigarettes are safer than vapes and switch to tobacco as their chosen form of nicotine. Further that cheap refillable versions of vapes popular among young people are already widely available so it will have no effect on youth vaping rates. They conclude that the upcoming Tobacco and Vapes Bill would be well placed to enforce age of sale laws specifically targeting young people buying vapes.
Across three projects we have undertaken at Healthy Dialogues in Bracknell Forest and Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, London Borough of Merton, London Borough of Hackney and City of London, reaching nearly 2000 young people. From these projects, we learned that young people were most commonly using disposable vapes and tended to uptake vaping because of social pressures and because of the fun flavours and colours. They considered disposable vapes cheap and easy to obtain, hide and dispose of. These findings are supported by a qualitative study exploring young people’s use of disposable vapes, which found that the main driver for vape use was the social aspect including buying new flavours together and demonstrating vape ‘tricks’ plus the affordability of the habit (Notley et al., 2024). This calls into question the claim around smoking increasing through a ban of disposable vapes as cigarettes do not have the aesthetic nature or the ability to perform tricks with vapour that young people seek.
In a previous blog, Rebecca used the COM-B model to map out the capability, opportunity and motivational factors that drive young people to take up vaping. The ban may serve to reduce reflective motivation wherein disposable vapes were seen as a collectable accessory. The ban would mean having one individual vape that is refilled with different liquids perhaps making it a less desirable object to own. Then again it could be argued that young people may still collect different flavour liquids. It is also possible that physical opportunity may reduce if shop owners choose not to stock refillable vapes if they foresee sales reducing. The ban would not directly impact any of these behaviours, especially with refillable versions of popular disposable vape brands working out cheaper, so whilst some elements of capability and motivation to vape are being targeted, the main drivers are not.
Essentially, it remains to be seen whether this ban will have any meaningful impact on vaping in young people, although it is likely that vape sellers will adapt their approach, offering refillable vapes as an alternative to the disposable vapes. As previously mentioned, the ban is not a piece of public health legislation, but it will be very interesting to follow the statistics over the next year to see if there are unintended consequences that include a reduction in vaping in young people.
Our work
In 2023, we designed and tested our Kick the Cloud vaping workshop in Merton, which you can access here: Kick the Cloud
Interested in running youth vaping prevention workshops in your area? Get in touch to learn how we can support you with training, intervention design, or bespoke projects.
References
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs. (2025, May 29). Single-use vapes ban: What businesses need to do. GOV.UK. Retrieved June 10, 2025, from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/single-use-vapes-ban
Jackson, S. E., Shahab, L., Tattan‐Birch, H., Buss, V., & Brown, J. (2025). Changes in vaping trends since the announcement of an impending ban on disposable vapes: A population study in Great Britain. Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.70057
Notley, C., Varley, A., Pope, I., Dawkins, L., & Ward, E. (2024). Young people’s use of disposable vapes: A qualitative study. Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16570
Taylor, E., Tattan‐Birch, H., & East, K. (2025). England’s disposable vape ban: An inadequate solution to youth vaping with potential unintended consequences. Addiction. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.16756