I’m sweating as I enter a shisha shop on Burelli St, Wollongong, on an undercover mission to find out how easy it is for underage teens to buy nicotine vapes.
The shop appears to be both a cash converter and a tobacconist. Armed with a face that begs to be asked for proof of age, I’m preparing myself to be asked for identification as stipulated by law.
I’m 21, so legally I can buy a nicotine-free vape but, if I want an e-cigarette with the highly addictive chemical, I need a doctor’s prescription and to buy the vape from a pharmacist. At least that’s what the law says.
My nerves are somewhat quelled when I remember how many young teens I see waltzing around puffing lolly-flavoured vapes, almost certainly laced with nicotine.
“Do you guys have any nicotine vapes here?” I ask with a slight shake in my voice. The woman behind the counter looks at me, then slides an A4 piece of cardboard across a glass counter that details a combination of shisha and cannabis paraphernalia.
I look down at a menu outlining a smorgasbord of vapes in different styles and flavours. Honestly, they all sound deeply appealing but I decide to stick with something basic. “Can I get one of the mango ice IGET bars?”
She whips out a shiny box, and pushes a card reader towards me that requests $30. I pay, collect my vape, and walk out. The episode lasted about a minute.
It crosses my mind that perhaps this first mission was beginner’s luck.
But no. I visit five more stores in Wollongong and purchasing what I’m told are black market vapes becomes routine. Six times I ask if they sell nicotine vapes. Six times the people working in the shops say yes.
I ran into only two obstacles over six stores. My card is declined at one store, and I am asked to pay with cash at another. Not once am I asked for ID.
At the last (and most official looking) tobacconist, the man behind the counter assures me the vape contains nicotine despite its box saying differently.
“To make it so that we can actually shift them into stores, we have them in the zero milligram boxes,” he tells me confidently.
This article was previously published in The Australian.
