Listening to young smokers and vapers talking about disposables

Public health professionals in England recognise that vape products can play a useful role in helping smokers cut down or quit, but a recent rise in young people’s use of disposable devices has led to calls for increased regulation. This presentation will explore the rise of disposables from the point of view of ordinary smokers and quitters from routine and manual backgrounds. Based on eight months of fieldwork across the UK, fifty interviews with vapers aged 16+ and ten interviews with vape retailers, this session will explore the reality versus the rhetoric of disposable use. Questions considered will include: what potential might disposables have to address health inequalities linked to smoking? And which young people are really being considered in the pressure for regulatory action?