Health
Minors Can Very Easily Purchase E-Cigarettes Online, Study
(Utah People’s Post) – Selling e-cigarettes to minors falls under illegal status in 41 states in the U.S. but a new study has found out that minors can very easily purchase e-cigarettes online.
On Monday, a team of researchers has published its study in the JAMA Pediatrics journal, showing that most youngsters have no trouble acquiring e-cigarettes on the internet, and very few attempts are hindered.
Rebecca Williams, a University of North Carolina researcher at Chapel Hill, and her colleagues have based their conclusions on a very simple experiment. They asked 11 non-smoking teens between 14 and 17 years old to try to buy e-cigarettes online from 98 of the most popular online shops. The shocking results showed that out of 98 attempts, only 5 were denied due to underage, while 18 purchases could not be completed, but not because of the buyer’s age, but because of faulty websites.
Upon home delivery, none of the participants in the study were asked to provide proof of age before receiving their orders, maybe because a majority of 95 percent of them were left on the doorstep. In general, the minors made 75 successful orders of e-cigarettes.