Vaping, young people and the service gap commissioners haven’t filled yet 

What young people are telling us about vaping 

Students in these sessions are often more candid than you might expect. They described vapes as easy to get hold of locally. Several named specific shops in their area where they could buy without being asked for ID. The majority said they bought through older friends, with prices varying by device size. A smaller number described buying e-liquids in bulk online and selling them on individually, and they understood the commercial logic of it perfectly well. 

The substance picture went wider than nicotine. Some students described accidentally inhaling THC or spice from a vape, recognising the difference by the taste. Others described ordering THC products from American websites, with deliveries sent to older friends’ addresses. Cannabis use was described as common at parties, with local suppliers readily accessible. 

When I asked why they vape, I was given a broad range of answers. Boredom, stress at school or at home, and in several cases hunger. When a young person is reaching for a vape because they’re hungry, we’re not dealing with a nicotine problem that has a nicotine solution. It’s poverty expressing itself through nicotine, and a cessation programme alone isn’t going to touch it.  

“Some of these young people aren’t vaping because they’re trying to look cool. They’re vaping because they’re stressed, bored or hungry. That’s a very different problem.” 

What school sessions can do, and what they can’t 

Our school sessions are built around dispelling myths, giving accurate information about the health and neurological risks of high nicotine intake on the developing brain, and creating space for honest questions without judgement. The Q&A format generates the kind of disclosure that surveys don’t. Students will tell you things in a room that they wouldn’t put in writing. 

These sessions are valuable. They reach young people who wouldn’t self-refer to anything. They open conversations and create the possibility of follow-up. But awareness isn’t cessation support. A young person who’s already dependent on nicotine needs something more structured than a one-off session and a fact sheet. They need a supported pathway with appropriate clinical oversight, accessible in a way that doesn’t stigmatise them and connected to the support relationships they already have at school.

Under current commissioning arrangements in East Riding, young people who vape but don’t smoke tobacco can’t be referred into the Healthier Futures Quit Smoking programme. The eligibility criteria require tobacco smoking. That means we can run a session in a school, identify young people who want support and have nowhere to send them.  

Closing that gap requires joined up working across organisations that don’t always sit in the same commissioning conversation. Xyla’s community health delivery, local schools and the Improving Care Effectiveness (ICE) research team are already working towards the same goal: understanding the scale of young people’s nicotine dependency, building the evidence base to make the case for new services and creating the referral pathways that currently don’t exist. 

ICE is running a formal investigation into nicotine addiction in young people across the region, drawing directly on data from our school sessions and community delivery. Schools contribute by hosting sessions and sharing what they are observing on the ground. Xyla connects the field evidence to clinical knowledge and programme design. That kind of collaboration, with shared data and a shared purpose, is what allows commissioners to anticipate population health need rather than simply respond to it once it has already become a problem in adult services.