By Brett Lackey For Daily Mail Australia
Published: 02:08 EDT, 6 July 2022 | Updated: 03:53 EDT, 6 July 2022
Video from inside a Chinese vape factory reveals how the devices sweeping across Australia are often made by hand, with workers injecting the nictone-filled fluid into the devices with syringes.
The vaping craze has spread rapidly across the nation thanks in no small part to the vast array of available bright colours and flavours such as pineapple, ice cream and watermelon.
Vapes still fall in a legally-grey area, as devices containing nicotine are banned in Australia unless you have a prescription.
However vapes being sold under-the-counter is commonplace across the entire country, as companies based overseas slap an 'import at your own risk' warning.
One clip filmed inside the HQD factory in the southern Chinese 'vape capital' of Shenzhen shows a worker filling a syringe from an open dish containing the syrup - the substance users inhale into their lungs - and injecting it into the device.
Other clips show rows upon rows of thousands of the colourful pen-shaped vapes being boxed up, ready to be shipped overseas to countries like Australia, where children as young as primary school age are inhaling them.
A worker at HQD's factory injects a vape pod with e-liquid - a mixture of propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavours, nicotine and other additives (pictured)
HQD is one of the most popular brands in Australia, offering disposable products such as King, Mega and Cuvie Air.
The company sells itself as offering vapes that are 'easy to use' with a 'delicious flavour range' and 'good for 4,000 puffs'.
Its products, such as Nova, are designed to be kept and refilled with replacement pods - with a box of three, each good for 500 puffs, costing $25.95.
The company, one of many in China which exports up to 90 per cent of the world's vapes, is cashing in on the boom, employing 2,000 workers and opening another two factories to keep up with demand.
It produces about half a million vapes per day.
Vapes or e-cigarettes are often sold in bright packaging with flavours like mango and blueberry but most still contain nicotine (pictured: some of HQD's products)
It's been a similar story for other companies like RELX, FLOW and Yooz in China's $750.4million e-cigarette industry, but even the communist superpower is beginning to crack down, citing the health risks.
Not the least of which is knock-off brands which risk unsafe ingredients, e-liquid leakage or nicotine content vastly different to amounts to the label.
According to the New York Times, a 2018 survey by Chinese authorities found most of the country's millions of vape smokers were aged 15 to 24 years old, leading to regulations of their sale online and a possible ban on using them in public places.
Australia is no different, with research confirming younger people are using vapes more frequently.
One in five people aged 18 to 24 who had never smoked before have tried the devices, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) said.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the previous government was not able to finalise a national tobacco strategy, which he is pursuing 'urgently'.
The NHMRC statement on e-cigarettes released on June 24 said the devices are not only harmful but there is limited evidence they help smokers quit the habit.
Australia's Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly considers the use of e-cigarettes the next-biggest health issue after Covid.
Groups such as Cancer Council Australia are calling for stronger enforcement of the current rules which ban the importing of nicotine.
HQD, for example, base their Australian operations in New Zealand where the laws are looser and an order placed on the Australian website will be shipped from across the Tasman.
HQD's factory in Shenzhen, China which pumps out half a million vapes per day (pictured)
The site states that a valid prescription is required and it is the buyer's responsibility to ensure they meet the required laws.
The site also states there is an 'age verification system upon entering the site to help reduce the chance that an under 18 is purchasing our HQD vapes.'
The 'check' upon entering is a simple pop-up asking visitors if they were over 18 with 'yes' and 'no' buttons.
The company does say a valid ID is required to be uploaded when ordering but even HQD's general manager Hou Shoushan admitted that could easily be faked or a borrowed ID card used.
'Smoking among juveniles is a common phenomenon all over the world. Sometimes, I send my daughter to buy me a cigarette,' Hou told The Sydney Morning Herald in September.
'First, the e-cigarette is safer than the traditional one. Second, it can refresh your brain. Third, it's a fashion. Personally, I don't think there is a big problem.'
While there appears to be some consensus that vaping is less harmful than tobacco cigarettes it is still more harmful than not smoking at all.
'Now, it may, of course, turn out that they genuinely are a much-reduced risk. But we don't know that. We've got this huge experiment happening on our kids,' Simon Chapman, emeritus professor of public health, University of Sydney told the paper.
A worker at the HQD factory fills a syringe with vape fluid and injects it by hand into a vape pod (pictured)
According to Johns Hopkins University most of the chemicals in vape e-liquid are yet to be fully identified and tested - though they do contain nicotine which makes them just as addictive as regular cigarettes.
In February 2020 the CDC confirmed 2,807 cases of lung injury from vaping use and 68 deaths - which were predominantly from users who modified their device or purchased dodgy e-liquid, some containing THC.
Cancer Council's Tobacco Issues Committee chair Libby Jardine said the vaping boom was the industry's response to the shrinking tobacco cigarette market.
'This hasn't happened by mistake,' Ms Jardine said.
'This has been driven by an industry who want to make a profit out of these products and the tobacco industry is in the thick of it ... to try and bring in a new generation of nicotine addicts.'
'We've got this mounting evidence of the harms of e-cigarettes. The Australian government needs to say enough is enough.'
Some groups are calling for tougher enforcement of the rules around nicotine vapes which are often imported despite them being banned (stock image)
In the United States, federal health officials have ordered vaping company Juul to pull its electronic cigarettes from the market.
Juul is part owned by Altria, formerly known as Philip Morris, one of the largest cigarette makers in the world.
The action is part of a sweeping effort by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to bring scientific scrutiny to the multibillion-dollar vaping industry after years of regulatory delays, Associated Press reports.
The FDA noted that Juul may have played a 'disproportionate'' role in the rise in teenage vaping.
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