The government of South Australia has launched an anti-vaping campaign on social media aimed at impressionable youngsters. It features some woman from the Cancer Council asserting that vaping "definitely" causes lung cancer based on a speculative report that doesn't even make that claim.
EXCLUSIVE: A new anti-vaping campaign is being rolled out across social media apps, targeting impressionable young South Australians. Authorities say while teen vaping rates are declining, there are still far too many becoming addicted to nicotine. @HanniHowe pic.twitter.com/pq99iNjbp9
— 7NEWS Adelaide (@7NewsAdelaide) December 15, 2025
Aside from the misinformation, there is an obvious problem with this campaign. Australia banned all social media for the under-16s last week (including YouTube!). The most likely outcome of this is that the cool kids will find a workaround (VPNs, for example) and leave the minority excluded. Perhaps the government thinks the same so is targeting kids on the platforms that it has just banned.
The sale of vapes is not just banned to the under-16s but to everybody in Australia. So we have a public information campaign telling kids who cannot legally see the adverts not to buy a product that nobody can legally buy. It's almost as if the government doesn't have much faith in prohibition, isn't it?
Incidentally, the news report notes that the youth vaping rate in Australia has fallen from 15% to 11% recently. In the UK, where vapes are legal (though only to adults) and there is less of a moral panic about vaping, the rate is 7%.
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