Minors use Snapchat and TikTok as sales channel for illegal vapes
By Olaf Geurts (editor), Mathilde de Jeu (editor until June 2025), | 6 April, 2023
Young Chinese vape manufacturers, TikTok influencers advertising for fifty euros and underage ‘Snapchat dealers’: the promotion and sale of e-cigarettes does not only take place in tobacco and vape shops anymore. The Investigative Desk discovered how vape dealers are using social media to buy and sell illegal e-cigarettes to minors.
Dutch law prohibits the sale of vapes via social media. The Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) should enforce this ban, but puts the responsibility on the social media platforms themselves. Both have no grip on the illicit trade that takes place on the smartphones of minors.
Read the full story on Vrij Nederland (in Dutch).
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