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Supporting students
Schools can support students by making the law clear, the facts known, and the decision theirs. Young people must be empowered to make informed decisions, by understanding that vaping is not harmless and is not for under 18s.
Make sure your staff are aware of key facts:
- The best thing you can do for your health is be smokefree and vapefree.
- Vaping can help some people quit smoking.
- Vaping is not harmless but it is less harmful than smoking.
- Vaping is not for children or young people, or people who do not smoke.
Vapes contain nicotine and other chemicals that can harm lungs and affect developing brains. Vaping is addictive. It carries real risks, and it is not harmless.
Give the legal facts
Reinforce the law to students that it is:
- illegal to sell or give a vaping product to someone under 18
- prohibited to vape on school property at any time.
Make sure the students are aware of your school’s policy, rules and procedures regarding tobacco, alcohol and other drugs.
Give the health facts
Educate students on vaping just as you would with other programmes that focus on reducing harm from the use of tobacco, alcohol or drugs.
Discuss how what we do not know is as important as what we do. Vaping contains chemicals and flavours whose long-term effects are unknown. Vaping can affect the lungs and make asthma symptoms worse.
Discuss how vaping contains nicotine which is highly addictive. Regularly using nicotine may have some negative effects on brain development in adolescents. Nicotine addiction makes it hard to stop vaping. Withdrawal symptoms can affect mood and concentration. Nicotine use can increase heart rate and long-term use can increase blood pressure and cause blood vessel damage.
Support staff who are quitting smoking
Schools can help staff who are vaping to quit smoking to comply with the law and remain a positive role model at school.
Consider flexible options to allow staff to attend stop-smoking sessions with their quit coach.
Offer staff the flexibility to go off-site to vape, away from young people. Ask what would help them to avoid triggers. For example, they may need to change their routine.
Vaping and young people today
Youth vaping increased quickly between 2019 and 2022, with daily vaping among Year 10 students reaching about 10% in 2022. Since then, vaping rates among young people have started to fall.
The 2025 ASH Year 10 Snapshot survey shows that 7.1% of students aged 14 to 15 vape every day, down from 8.7% in 2024. This is the second year in a row that daily vaping has decreased.
Regular vaping among Year 10 students was highest in 2021 (20.2%) and has steadily dropped to 11.2% in 2024. Rates differ by ethnicity. Māori students have the highest rates, followed by Pacific students, then European/Pākehā, with Asian students having the lowest rates. Fewer students are also trying vaping for the first time.
Daily vaping among young people who have never smoked has also gone down, from 3.7% in 2024 to 3% in 2025.
The New Zealand Health Survey showed for students aged 15 to 17, the daily vaping rates was 15.4% in 2022/23. The rate declined to 10.5% in 2023/24 but this was not statistically significant. In 2024/25, the daily vaping rate for students aged 15 to 17 was 13.6%.
Teaching about vaping
Since most vaping products contain nicotine, they can be addressed alongside other substances covered in alcohol and other drug (AoD) education. Schools can adapt existing teaching activities to focus specifically on vaping.
Tūturu offers a range of useful information including curriculum-aligned resources.
Students should also be encouraged to think critically about how vaping companies market their products. Aggressive advertising and designing vapes as “lifestyle” items has played a big role in how quickly vaping has become popular.
When teaching junior secondary students focus on the key issues around vaping. You can also use this approach for senior students when time is limited.
Health and wellbeing
- Explain why vaping can be harmful, using 'Te Whare Tapa Whā'.
- Help students understand what vaping is, how vapes work, and how they are different from cigarettes.
- Discuss how vaping affects Māori and other ethnic groups and compare this with how cigarettes were introduced in the past.
Why young people vape
- Explore why vaping has become more common among young people.
- Look at how vaping was advertised before ads were banned in 2020, and what those ads suggested about who vapes.
- Discuss why young people can still access vapes even though they are R18 and illegal to sell to under-18s.
- Talk about where vapes are sold and how close vape shops are to schools. How do you balance the needs of people who smoke looking to quit by vaping, against children being able to see them?
Rules and regulations
- Learn about Aotearoa New Zealand’s vaping laws.
- Discuss your school’s rules and how well they are understood and followed.
Reducing harm
- Talk about actions students can take to look after their own wellbeing.
- Discuss how to support friends and whānau.
- Consider what communities and society can do, such as laws, policies, and support services.
Thinking ahead
- Discuss what could happen if vaping continues to be treated as a lifestyle product, especially by people who do not smoke.
As this is an evolving issue, check out the latest legal information on New Zealand websites and health-related information from reputable New Zealand and international websites, when including consideration of vaping in your teaching and learning programme.
When teaching senior secondary students (or when more time is available), students can explore vaping in more depth and think critically about health, law, and society.
Health and wellbeing
- Use up-to-date, trusted research to check common myths about vaping and what the evidence actually shows.
- Include information about vaping as a way to help people quit smoking.
- Review New Zealand and international data on vaping rates among young people.
- Critically review Ministry of Health statements about vaping and young people.
- Run a school survey to explore students’ vaping use, knowledge, and attitudes.
Why young people vape
- Analyse how vaping products are marketed to young people, including the use of lifestyle branding.
- Use resources such as Tūturu to explore how marketing affects wellbeing.
- Investigate who owns vaping companies and why tobacco companies may be involved.
- Add survey questions about where students see vaping ads and how they access vapes.
Laws and regulations
- Research New Zealand’s vaping laws and regulations.
- Discuss how difficult it may be to reduce youth vaping and why.
- Consider the role of vaping in supporting people to quit smoking and New Zealand’s smokefree goals.
Reducing harm
- Design and run a school-wide health promotion approach that supports all students.
- Encourage students to challenge vaping as a lifestyle product and take action personally and with others.
Thinking bigger
- Look at vaping as part of wider alcohol and other drug use.
- Discuss why reducing substance harm is difficult at a community or societal level.
- Debate responsibility: individuals, laws, or companies that make and market these products.
- Consider whether vaping should be treated mainly as a legal issue or a health and wellbeing issue.
As this is an evolving issue, check out the latest legal information on New Zealand websites and health-related information from reputable New Zealand and international websites, when including consideration of vaping in your teaching and learning programme.