Businesses or individuals that have faced legal action for selling vapes to under 18s 2024

Request

1. Between January 2024 and June 2024, how many businesses or individuals in your local area / jurisdiction, have faced legal action (charged/cautioned etc.) for selling vapes (or similar products) to people under the age of 18?

2. Between January 2024 and June 2024, how many times have the police been involved in (attended / charged / investigated etc.) cases of 'spiking' in relation to spiked vapes or similar products?

Clarification:

A 'spiked vape / e-cigarette' is a vape that has been laced with substances such as, but not limited to; vapourised LSD, synthetic marijuana, or painkillers, which can lead to serious health implications. Examples of spiking include; adding substances to a product without the knowledge and/or consent from the victim.

Response

I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An analyst within this unit has conducted a search of our Crime Management System – Connect which records complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as ‘crimes’. All our systems are designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They provided me with the following:

The team has researched this, including checking PNLD. Spiked vaped/e-cigarettes is not HO recordable at this time - No Information Held.

Under Section 16, they have suggested you try contacting Trading Standards.
If you would like further conviction data on this topic, you may also want to contact the Crown Prosecution Service, as South Yorkshire Police only records investigation outcomes, not prosecutions (outcomes at court). You can do so here: https://www.cps.gov.uk/freedom-information

Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording systems and information assets.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.