The inadequate number of new recruits hired to enforce the disposable vapes ban along with insufficient funding and lack of awareness will lead to a "new era of criminal enterprise" in the UK, MPs and campaigners have warned, citing crime levels seen in Australia.
The ban on disposable vapes is coming into effect on June 1.
Only 80 apprentice Trading Standards officers have been employed while £10 million has been allocated to police a booming black market economy, far less that what was demanded by convenience store owners.
Last year, ACS had called on the Government to provide Trading Standards in England with an additional "£140m over the next five years" to fund a new battalion of 400 enforcement officers, aimed at tackling the rising tide of illegal vape devices being distributed in England.
A series of FOI requests also showed Health Secretary Wes Streeting's Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) had not yet allocated funds for public awareness campaigns, Daily Mail reported, adding that DHSC would spend just £30,000 of the £10 million allocated for training of the Trading Standard's apprentices, or £375 each.
In addition, only six full time staff from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will police the manufacturer's product supply chain into the UK market.
The MHRA will enforce premarket checks and the Environment Agency will handle recycling.
The Advertising Standards Authority will police any unlawful marketing , funded by DHSC.
According to ACS, since 2020, three illegal vapes have been seized every minute. Between 2020 and 2023, the amount of illegal vape devices seized by Trading Standards increased 19 fold, with a total of 4.18 million illegal vapes seized during the last three years.
This however represents just a fraction of the illicit vape devices that are available for customers to purchase. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute estimates that up to one in three vape products on the market today are illegal.
Latest National Trading Standards figures from November reveal authorities confiscated 1.2 million illegal vapes in 2023-2024, marking a 59 per cent increase from the previous year.
In Essex alone, a huge black market has now formed which saw a staggering "14,000 per cent increase" in illegal vape seizures between 2023 and 2024, with 333,600 confiscated last year alone.
In London, councils seized 530,498 illegal vapes in 2024, estimated to be worth over £6million, with tens of thousands being snared in raids across the UK each month. Trading Standards in Kent seized 431,005, in Merseyside 29,180 and Wales 30,379.
Pointing out that the government's support in implementing the ban is expected to fall short in front of the massive black market, many now fear the UK approach might lead the country's retail to crime levels seen in Australia, thus putting law-abiding convenience stores owners in grave danger.
In Australia, vapes are only available on prescription and biker gangs have taken over the criminal economy, murdering rivals, firebombing shops that refuse to stock vapes illegally and terrorising urban areas.
Conservative MP and member of the all-party parliamentary group for responsible vaping Jack Rankin said, "With no proper resources or plan to monitor the market, underworld operators will move quickly to usher in a new era of criminal enterprise in vaping products.
"Small businesses will already suffer due to a loss in footfall the advertising ban will cause, which in turn will drive more people to source the products from the black market."
"This always ends in violence, and in Australia we have seen firebomb attacks by gangs on retail businesses that have refused to sell their black market products."
Campaign group We Vape founder Mark Oates said, "Many of the new laws will be impossible to enforce because of the woefully inadequate numbers of officers government has put in place to do so, alongside pathetic funding.
"The unregulated, illicit sector undermines the enormous contribution vaping has made in reducing smoking rates and health harms so it is vital criminals are targeted as they carve out and protect their territories.
"Government must increase investment here in enforcement of laws that remove supply, but not demand, or agencies will be overwhelmed by the black market and its associated crimes, as we have seen in Australia."
