Is Canadian federal legislation effective in preventing youth access to vaping initiation products? A study using secret shoppers and online access in three Alberta cities

Kilcommons, Sebastian; Horwitz, Simonne; Ha, Seong Eon; Ebbert, Kirsten; Restivo, Léa; Verbeke, Mary-Claire; Hays-Alberstat, Ally; Cooke, Lorcan; MacKay, Cameron; Anselmo, Mark; Mitchell, Ian; Doig, Christopher J.; Guichon, Juliet R.

doi:10.1016/j.pmedr.2020.101117

Cited by 5 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…What is the influence of color, salience, and framing? How do customers make sense of a dispensary's terms of use, privacy policies, social media links, and codes of conduct? What organizational and cultural values are manifest across dispensary websites, and how might they shape customers’ senses of community? How do preselection, information hiding, and other dark patterns on a dispensary website affect customers’ “reservoir of goodwill” (Krug, 2014, pp. 165–171)?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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You Shall Not Pass? The Design of Age Gates in an Emerging Cannabis Market

Madson

2022

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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Age gates are becoming common on the websites of cannabis dispensaries, following design practices in other controversial industries. Yet, age gates can typically be bypassed through trial and error or basic arithmetic, raising questions over best practices. This study therefore characterized the age gates of dispensaries licensed in the Arizona adult use cannabis program, using a “digital mystery shopper” approach to examine the age gates’ location, appearance, and performance. After presenting the results, I outline possible best practices and next steps for technical and professional communicators.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…How do preselection, information hiding, and other dark patterns on a dispensary website affect customers’ “reservoir of goodwill” (Krug, 2014, pp. 165–171)?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

You Shall Not Pass? The Design of Age Gates in an Emerging Cannabis Market

Madson

2022

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

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“…Accurate and reliable identification of minors online is a challenging task 62 . The use of alternative identification documents and technological solutions provides a well-known avenue to regulatory escape in this domain 55 , 63 . Thus, despite attempts to age-restrict online access to products such as nicotine, gambling and pornography, their use by minors is common: in 2019, 11% of 11–16 year olds in the UK reported gambling during the prior week 64 .…”

Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In 2021, a survey of adolescents found that the majority of respondents viewed online pornography, with many using a VPN 65 . In 2020, minors found themselves easily able to circumvent restrictions on the purchase of e-cigarettes by utilizing false identification 63 .…”

Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%

No evidence that Chinese playtime mandates reduced heavy gaming in one segment of the video games industry

et al. 2023

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Governments around the world are considering regulatory measures to reduce young people’s time spent on digital devices, particularly video games. This raises the question of whether proposed regulatory measures would be effective. Since the early 2000s, the Chinese government has been enacting regulations to directly restrict young people’s playtime. In November 2019, it limited players aged under 18 to 1.5 hours of daily playtime and 3 hours on public holidays. Using telemetry data on over seven billion hours of playtime provided by a stakeholder from the video games industry, we found no credible evidence for overall reduction in the prevalence of heavy playtime following the implementation of regulations: individual accounts became 1.14 times more likely to play heavily in any given week (95% confidence interval 1.139–1.141). This falls below our preregistered smallest effect size of interest (2.0) and thus is not interpreted as a practically meaningful increase. Results remain robust across a variety of sensitivity analyses, including an analysis of more recent (2021) adjustments to playtime regulation. This casts doubt on the effectiveness of such state-controlled playtime mandates.

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“…Regulations have addressed marketing strategies such as advertisement for tobacco products since 1971 but not e-cigarettes (Tuchman, 2019). Regulations have a significant effect on how vendors sell nicotine-based vaping products to the youth but may not adequately achieve goals of protecting the health of youth through restricted access (Kilcommons, et al, 2020). One challenge related to the regulation of e-cigarettes is the variety and number of devices and flavors used in e-cigarettes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Youth-oriented packaging and the demand for e-liquids: Evidence from data scraped from Amazon in the United Kingdom

Lawani

Owusu-Amankwah

Ihuhwa³

2021

Preprint

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To address the threat e-cigarettes poses to public health, especially among youths, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a policy in 2020 that regulates the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes with fruit and mint flavors. Such flavors are alleged to lure youth into smoking and can increase the likelihood for addiction to other drugs. However, this regulation does not address packaging that can have a similar effect on the demand for e-cigarettes products. Indeed, certain e-liquids use youth-oriented (kiddish, cartoonish, and colorful) packaging which are attractive to youth but may also induce a no-harm perception among e-liquids users. In this paper, we examine the impact of the youth-oriented packaging on e-liquid sales. Using data scraped from Amazon, the results of our analysis reveal that youth-oriented packaging increases the sale of e-liquids. In addition, the demand for e-liquids is inelastic and the percentage of propylene glycol (PG), the rating, and the sentiment in the online reviews left by previous buyers also influence the sale of e-liquids. This research suggests that besides fruit and mint flavors, the policy goal of reducing use among youth should also include packaging. The analysis finds that taxation policies to raise prices of e-liquids will not affect appreciably the demand for e-liquids. Policies for e-liquids control should focus on designing packaging that reduces the no- or low-risk perception.

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Is Canadian federal legislation effective in preventing youth access to vaping initiation products? A study using secret shoppers and online access in three Alberta cities

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

You Shall Not Pass? The Design of Age Gates in an Emerging Cannabis Market

You Shall Not Pass? The Design of Age Gates in an Emerging Cannabis Market

No evidence that Chinese playtime mandates reduced heavy gaming in one segment of the video games industry

Youth-oriented packaging and the demand for e-liquids: Evidence from data scraped from Amazon in the United Kingdom

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