The Victorian father of a five-year-old boy who ended up in hospital weeks after vaping with a classmate at school is demanding tighter restrictions on the nicotine products.
The boy’s father, Steven, said a seven-year-old child from the school brought their mother’s fruit-flavoured vape to school and asked his son to try it.
See more about the incident in the video above
“Another child grabbed his mum’s vape at home, brought it into the schoolyard and asked them to come into the bushes and suck on this, it tastes like grapes,” Steven told 7NEWS.
By the end of the school day, the disposable vape was empty and the boy’s parents now fear that he had been using it.
Three weeks after the incident, the five-year-old began coughing and vomiting and was rushed to Geelong hospital where he is waiting to hear if he has developed pneumonia.
“(He) couldn’t stop coughing to the point that he was no longer breathing,” Steven said.
“I had no choice but to call an ambulance.”
Steven is now demanding tighter restrictions on vapes, which are often marketed with cartoons, fruit and catchy lines.
‘They are not harmless’
He wants that kind of marketing to be made illegal and is calling for better child protection on the devices.
“I can’t open a Panadol bottle without some force, as you’d well know, but a child can pick up one of these devices that has nicotine in it,” Steven said.
Steven paid almost $3500 to have the vapes analysed in a laboratory, with the preliminary results revealing at least sixteen chemicals, including nicotine.
In Australia, nicotine vapes are only allowed to be sold with prescriptions.
Dr Sarah White from Quit Victoria said vapes are designed to market and target kids.
“These are not doing anybody any good whatsoever,” she said.
“They are not harmless.”
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2022-03-02 01:27:09Z
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