Featured Image Credit: Geek Bar
Topics: UK News
Poppy Bilderbeck
An urgent warning has been issued over hundreds of illegal disposable vapes found in a raid.
E-cigarettes that were found to contain twice the UK legal limit of nicotine were discovered being sold in corner shops by Trading Standards officers.
After a tip of from a local resident, two convenience stores in Crawley, West Sussex, were raided and more than 140 of the Geek Bar Pro vapes were seized.
The vapes are illegal because they have not been authorised by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), The Sun reports.
The disposable e-cigarettes cost around £6 and contain 4.5ml of nicotine, as opposed to the UK's legal limit of 2ml, and last for up to 1,500 puffs.
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The Geek Bar Pro vapes also failed to include information regarding a UK contact name and address on them.
West Sussex Trading Standards team manager, Peter Aston, explained: 'These products do not meet legal requirements and we are working hard to make sure retailers in West Sussex remove them from sale.'
'Trading Standards officers are taking action to get these products off shop shelves – protecting the health and wellbeing of people in West Sussex and ensuring local retailers and wholesalers are selling only legal vaping products,' Duncan Crow who is a member of the Community Support, Fire and Rescue, said.
A recent study in the US revealed erectile dysfunction is twice as likely to be an issue for men if they use vapes.
However, the NHS could start to prescribe them to help patients quit cigarettes, despite the World Health Organization calling e-cigarettes and vapes ‘undoubtedly harmful’.
Professor Nick Hopkinson, medical director for Asthma UK and the British Lung Foundation said: 'There is already good evidence that commercially available e-cigarettes enable people to switch away from smoking to a much safer alternative. However, the development of medicinally licensed e-cigarettes would be a really important step forward, providing patients and healthcare professionals with an additional tool to break dependence on smoking, backed up by the reassurance that comes from a rigorous authorisation process'.
It is hoped that Britain will be free of smoking by 2030, according to 'levelling up' plans by the government. Smoking to thought to be one of the main causes between gaps in life expectancy, and the government is looking to address this as it tackles tobacco addication.
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