Aflood of harrowing first-person accounts filled the national airwaves recently, from people living with addiction to parents trying to help and manage loved ones in the throes of it, after the HSE warned that high-risk synthetic and semi-synthetic cannabinoids had been found in vapes, vape liquids and related products available through shops.

The HSE’s Emerging Drug Trends Laboratory has analysed 76 vapes and vape liquids so far this year. Of these, 28 contained HHC (a semi-synthetic psychoactive compound) or related semi-synthetic cannabinoids.

A further eight contained potent synthetic cannabinoids and 12 contained cannabis or related compounds.

The HSE has also warned that some products labelled as CBD may contain HHC or novel synthetic cannabinoids instead.

Detective Superintendent Shane McCormick warned Morning Ireland listeners on RTÉ Radio 1 that Garda testing of products found they did not always contain what the label stated.

As concern continues, “vaping” is being used to describe two quite different problems and conflating them may be doing the debate no favours.

Unpredictable contents

Cannabis and synthetic cannabinoids in vapes raise serious questions about drugs, unpredictable contents and the potential mental health consequences for young people.

Nicotine vaping presents a different dilemma entirely; harm reduction for long-term smokers, but a new and increasingly normalised route into nicotine addiction for teenagers.

It’s the bubble-gum flavours and the neon lights in the windows and on the doors. It’s all very attractive

Independent Sligo councillor Marie Casserly, who is also a secondary school teacher and guidance counsellor, says the recent reports have caused understandable concern among parents.

From her work with young people, however, Marie believes one of the difficulties is that teenagers (and often the adults around them) may have little idea what is actually contained in the products they encounter.

“Children don’t know the difference. Adults don’t know the difference,” she says.

Bubble-gum flavours

Marie has also watched vaping become increasingly visible and attractive to young people.

“It’s the bubble-gum flavours and the neon lights in the windows and on the doors. It’s all very attractive,” she says.

She believes conversations about vaping need to begin before children reach their teenage years, rather than waiting until it has already become part of their social world.

“I’m convinced that parents in primary school need to start speaking about this with their children when they are very young,” she says.

But, she adds, frightening or lecturing children is unlikely to be the answer.

“It shouldn’t be a lecture. It should be an open and honest discussion – the same as when you’re talking about other things.”

Professor John Crown, a consultant oncologist and former independent senator, has been calling for tighter controls on e-cigarettes for more than a decade.

While in the Seanad, he co-introduced legislation that sought to prohibit their sale to under-18s and restrict their advertising and use in workplaces and public venues.

He believes Ireland made a fundamental mistake by allowing vaping to become established and normalised before robust regulation was in place.

“We got it wrong in the first place,” Professor Crown says. “The genie is out of the bottle now.”

'Smoking cessation tool'

He nevertheless believes it is important to distinguish between vaping as a harm-reduction tool for established smokers and its use by children and teenagers who have never smoked.

“This is my position on vaping in a nutshell,” he says. “It is a very good mechanism for smokers to decrease their risk. It is far less dangerous than smoking. It should be, in essence, a smoking cessation tool.”

That does not make it benign.

“Vaping is, I believe, a gateway to becoming a nicotine addict, and many nicotine addicts will then become smokers.”

Professor Crown thinks the tobacco industry, faced with falling smoking rates and the deaths of generations of long-term smokers, was quick to diversify.

Vape shops proliferated and the products appeared prominently in ordinary newsagents.

Rolling that back will not be easy.

“We have to tighten the screw on it, like we did with smoking,” he says. “The biggest misconception is that it’s harmless. It’s not. To me, the real risk is developing nicotine addiction. I think that’s the overwhelming risk.”

Stark figures

The HSE figures are stark. They show that roughly one in five (20%) adolescents aged 15-18 currently vape, while nearly two in five (39%) have experimented with e-cigarettes. It is that normalisation among young people that concerns Marie.

From her experience in education, she believes schools cannot be expected to deal with the issue alone and would like to see age-appropriate information given to children before vaping becomes embedded in teenage social life.

Teachers, she says, may not always have the specialist knowledge to answer detailed questions about rapidly changing products, and she believes health professionals should play a greater role in that education.

Nicotine, Professor Crown stresses, is not innocuous. It can increase heart rate and constrict blood vessels, while young people are particularly vulnerable to nicotine dependence as their brains are still developing.

Long-term effects

The HSE advises that every effort should be made to discourage young people from vaping.

There are also unanswered questions about the long-term effects of repeatedly inhaling other chemicals contained in vaping liquids.

“We have to remember that people were smoking for 400 years before we knew there were health risks associated with it,” Professor Crown says.

Cancer-causing

That historical warning, he suggests, should make us cautious about assuming something is safe simply because long-term evidence is not yet available.

Cigarettes were widely used for centuries before their devastating effects became accepted. Vaping products and ingredients, meanwhile, continue to evolve.

“There are certainly chemicals in vaping products that could be cancer-causing,” he says. “It may just take a longer while before we work that out.”

The line Professor Crown returns to is simple: for an adult smoker who cannot quit, vaping may substantially reduce harm. For a teenager who has never smoked, there is no corresponding benefit.

“It has probably vastly fewer health consequences than smoking burnt tobacco, but it is not harmless. It is not harmless.”

Regulation in Ireland has already started to tighten. It is illegal to sell vapes to anyone under 18 and, since February this year, retailers selling tobacco or nicotine-inhaling products must hold an annual licence for each premises.

Further measures are planned. The Public Health (Tobacco Products and Nicotine Inhaling Products) (Amendment) Bill 2026 proposes banning vape advertising in retail outlets and point-of-sale displays in mixed retailers, restricting colours and imagery on devices and packaging and prohibiting devices designed to resemble products such as toys or games.

Separate legislation has also been brought forward to prohibit the retail sale of single-use or disposable vapes.

For Marie, regulation is only part of the response. Parents, schools and health professionals also need to be able to talk to young people clearly about what they are using and why it carries risks.

For Professor Crown, the regulatory challenge is slightly more complicated – protecting children from acquiring a nicotine addiction without losing sight of the role vaping can play for an adult smoker trying to leave a considerably more dangerous habit behind.

He knows that difficulty from somewhere other than the clinic. He recalls his own experience of smoking into adulthood and how hard it was to stop.

“It is a strong addiction, no two ways about it.”