E-Cigarettes - Smoke Alarm

The rise of disposable e-cigarettes has focused regulators worldwide on what they fear isan explosion of vaping among young people

-  Michael Safi

The vaping industry turns 20 this year, but Ira Simeonidis fears the golden age of e-cigarettes is already wafting away. "It's a bit destroyed," said the organiser of Hall of Vape, Europe's largest vaping trade fair, held in Stuttgart this month.

His festival once drew more than 20,000 visitors, who attended talks, partied with DJs and browsed rows of exhibits by renowned designers showing off their latest "mods", elaborately crafted devices for inhaling nicotine and other substances of choice.

"It was for professional and passionate vapers," Simeonidis said.

"A community thing, to get together, drink beer, vape and see each other once a year." But no more. While the festival was suspended for two years during the Covid-19 pandemic, the vaping world transformed.

Markets around the world have been flooded with mass-produced disposable vapes, and a product that was once the province of speciality stores now fills the racks of corner shops, mobile-phone accessory stands and booths hawking tourist tat.

The number of designers exhibiting at his fair more than halved this year, Simeonidis said. There were no concerts, and many of his stalls were taken up by companies selling disposable technology. "They're cheaper and it's catastrophic for the environment with their lithium batteries," he lamented.

"Also, there are the kids." The rise of disposables has not only upset vaping purists. It has intensified the focus of regulators around the world on what they fear is an explosion of vaping among young people, including school-age children, enticed by dark marketing of the products by social media influencers and kid-friendly flavours, such as crème brûlée, sour sherbet and Swedish fish.