If you fancy treating yourself to a disposable vape mystery box, there are some bits of mystery you will want and some you won’t.
The best mystery is just what kinds of flavours you will encounter, with an opportunity for novelty and surprise. However, the other kind could await some unwise folk who choose unlicensed suppliers and end up with something they had not bargained for.
As the BBC has reported, Kent Trading Standards seized around 300,000 counterfeit disposable vapes in Channel ports during December, a significant increase on normal amounts.
While the fact these items have been prevented from getting onto the black market in the UK is some good news, the sheer volume makes it increasingly likely that a number will have made it across the sea and onto Britain’s streets.
This means if you go looking for cheap vaping products from unlicensed providers you could easily end up with one of these fake goods. That could mean getting something that does not work, or has illegal quantities of certain chemicals, which could pose a severe health hazard.
James Whiddett of Kent Trading Standards said: “A lot of our work has been focused on retail outlets but this is now higher up the supply chain.”
Warning of the dangers posed by the contents of the products, he noted: “We’re stopping these devices which may have about ten times the legal limit of nicotine in them.” The current legal limit on nicotine content is 2 ml, or 600 puffs, but illegal devices have been found with between 350 and 700 puffs. He said demand had been pushed by increased desire for disposable vapes.
It is not just at Kent’s Channel ports that a large number of illegal vapes have been seized. In mid-December it was revealed that a joint operation by Tradings Standards bodies across the north east of England recovered 1.4 tonnes of illegal vaping products.
