Teens go undercover to bust B.C. shops selling tobacco, vape products to minors

During the day, a Surrey teenager watches her classmates take puffs of nicotine from vapes they’ve hidden up their sleeves while their teachers’ backs are turned. When school ends, the 17-year-old begins her hunt for the clerks who sold the high schoolers those products.

Amy, who Postmedia News has chosen to identify using a pseudonym, is one of 12 young people that Fraser Health Authority employs to bust grocery, convenience and smoke shops that are illegally dispensing tobacco and vapour products to minors.

The undercover shoppers work in pairs, with one teen acting as a buyer and the other as a witness to sales and other potential infractions.

“I go in with a product in mind. I typically ask for VUSE Clear or an Elf Bar vape,” says Amy.

What the Grade 11 student has come across during her year on the job has surprised her.

“One vape shop we went into, the clerk bragged to us: ‘We’ve got some stuff here you could never get in Canada.'”

If retailers adhere to provincial regulations that require buyers of tobacco and vapour products to be 19 years or older, they will ask Amy for photo ID.

But some Lower Mainland clerks continue to turn a blind eye to the teenager’s youthful appearance and allow her to purchase cigarettes and vapes.

“We’re seeing a lot more sales to minors,” says Alex Kwan, who oversees Fraser Health’s tobacco and vapour products enforcement team.

Last year, Fraser Health teams visited more than 1,200 retail outlets to check for compliance with provincial regulations. They handed out 63 fines for violations that included selling cigarettes and vapes to minors and having nicotine-laced products on public display.

“Sometimes clerks tell us their managers didn’t train them properly on age requirements for sales. Others say they were busy with huge lineups and didn’t take notice of the young buyers.”

With enticing flavours like root beer, cereal milk and cotton candy, as well as a relatively cheap price of $20 per vape, Kwan says youth are more at risk than ever of getting addicted.

“We want to be able to put a stop to sales to minors as much as we can, to avoid having youth become addicted to the nicotine in these products and the potential health impacts of that down the road.”

The number of Canadian teenagers who regularly use e-cigarettes ranks among the highest in the globe, according to a Health Canada survey of 61,000 Grade 7-12 students from nine provinces between September 2021 and June 2022.

Close to 12 per cent in Grades 10 to 12 reported doing so daily — up slightly from 11 per cent in 2016 and 2017.

If Amy completes a transaction, she and her partner will walk over to a waiting Fraser Health enforcement officer parked nearby and record written details of the sale, including the cashier’s description, what product was bought and levels of traffic at the shop.

“From there, the enforcement officer goes into the store and gives the clerk a (verbal) warning. If it’s happened more than once, they get a ticket,” she said. “At vape shops, if clerks don’t kick us out within 30 seconds, they can also be fined.”

Businesses with several infractions can face court penalties, potentially losing their licence to sell tobacco and vapour products with fines of up to $5,000.

Amy says the job has become more tricky as some Lower Mainland shops have begun to catch onto Fraser Health’s enforcement strategy.

“They know we’re going to be coming in pairs in the late afternoon with one person hanging back every single time,” says the teen.

Aside from introducing a new generation of Canadians to nicotine since it came onto the market in 2004, vaping — which was first marketed as a smoking cessation device — has unknown health risks, according to the Canadian Lung Association.

In an effort to limit the amount of nicotine in e-cigarette devices, Ottawa set a maximum concentration of 20 milligrams per millilitre of the stimulant in cartridges in July 2021.

Vape aerosols, according to the lung association, can contain other chemicals such as formaldehyde and contaminants like nickel, tin and aluminum. When breathed in, the compounds have the potential to cause irreversible lung damage.

For the Grade 11 student who has never tried vaping, Amy has hopes of becoming a criminal defence lawyer in the future.

“My friends joke that I am a narc … but what I’m working toward is to be able to continue to help people.”

sgrochowski@postmedia.com

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