Councils have been urged to clamp down on vapes in schools after a Record probe unearthed mounting deadly dangers to Scotland’s 800,000 pupils.
Laura Young, a campaigner known as the vape crusader, said: “It’s urgent stuff. We need to find a way of getting disposable vapes out of the hands of young people. I’m regularly invited to go into schools to talk about vaping. By far the most serious incident uncovered was a stairwell bin fire between rooms D11 and D12 at Hawick High School in the Borders in May this year.
A small number of vapes were found in playgrounds. Unusually, some of the country’s biggest councils, such as Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen said that the information was “not held”. “It should have been really simple to solve – just ban them completely. Instead, the problem is getting worse and worse.
South of the Border, the Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, is calling on the UK Government for a wider ban on the sale and manufacturing of vapes by next year. There is no similar call from Cosla, the umbrella body for councils in Scotland.