Charlotte’s accessible web: how West Australian children and adolescents can access e‐cigarettes online

• Published in: Australian and New Zealand journal of public health Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 81 - 82
• Main Author: Wood, Nicholas
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Australia Elsevier B.V 01-02-2021; John Wiley & Sons, Inc; Elsevier Limited; Elsevier
• Subjects: Accessibility; Adolescents; Adults; Advertising; Age; Audits; Children; Cigarette industry; Cigarettes; Consumers; Demographic aspects; Digital media; Discounts; E-commerce; Electronic cigarettes; Experimentation; Experiments; Flavors; Health aspects; Indigenous peoples; Internet; Marketing; Nicotine; Public health; Purchasing; Reinforcement; Retail stores; Secondary school students; Smoking; Social marketing; Social media; Social networks; Technology application; Teenagers; Tobacco industry; Verification; Websites; Young adults; Youth; Australia; United States > US
• ISSN: 1326-0200; 1753-6405
• DOI: 10.1111/1753-6405.13056

The advent of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) has amassed a new generation of child and adolescent nicotine users globally.1 By design, the burgeoning e-cigarette industry has attracted a young and naive consumer base, crafting colourful designs and sweetened flavours while harnessing social marketing and influencing.1 Among high school students in Western Australia, ever-use or experimentation with e-cigarettes has grown to 14%.2 Internationally, online retailers have become an accessible means to purchase e-cigarettes, with web traffic to online stores buoyed by social media and other marketing strategies such as online promotion codes, reward schemes and new customer discounts.3 Of concern, there are few barriers to purchasing by young people. One US study reported that two-thirds of online vendors had no age identification requirements at all,4 and even when websites ask consumers to confirm their age, verification is easily falsified.5 While the extent of online e-cigarette purchases by Australian children and adolescents is unknown, estimates suggest that at least one-quarter of e-cigarettes obtained by adults are purchased online.6 Plausibly, this could be higher among tech-native children and adolescents.