There is a new sort of contraband turning up in British schools. It looks like a vape, is sold as a cannabis vape, and is often bought through the same social-media apps used to swap football clips and complain about homework. The trouble is that it may contain neither nicotine nor cannabis.
In a large study published last year, researchers led by the University of Bath analyzed 1,923 vapes and bottles of e-liquid confiscated from 114 secondary schools across England. Spice, the synthetic cannabinoid associated with prison emergencies and spectacularly grim social media footage, was found in 13 percent of the samples. In London and Lancashire, the figure was about one in four.
Actual THC appeared in just 1.2 percent.
The children thought they were buying cannabis, but what many received was a cheaper, more potent substitute with unpredictable effects that can include seizures, psychosis, and heart problems. It is the familiar principle of the illicit market: advertise one drug, supply another, and allow the customer to discover the difference after inhalation. America has experienced the same problem – albeit on a far grander, more perilous scale, with fentanyl.
White, Black, or Gray
The British government has responded to youth vaping with characteristic administrative energy. Under proposals announced in July, legal vape devices could be restricted to white, black, or gray. Packaging may become plain white, retail displays may be hidden, and flavor names could be reduced to sober descriptions such as “apple,” presumably because a teenager who rejects “Orchard Blast” will be rendered powerless by basic fruit terminology.
There is a legitimate case for stopping nicotine products from being dressed like candy. Children should not vape, and retailers who sell to them deserve enforcement. But the latest research exposes a different problem, and it is not chiefly one of typefaces.
A schoolchild buying a supposed THC pen from an Instagram account is not participating in the regulated nicotine market. He is buying an illegal drug from an anonymous seller. This distinction ought to be obvious, yet public discussion routinely bundles every device with a battery and mouthpiece into one untidy category marked VAPES, as though the contents were a minor technicality.
Findable
An adult looking at the best vape kits in the UK is shopping in a recognizable retail market. A responsible seller operates age checks, keeps product records, deals with identifiable suppliers, and has a business address. There is somebody to inspect, complain to, or prosecute if the rules are broken.
The social-media dealer has none of this, of course. He does not attend consultations, redesign his packaging after a ministerial announcement, or worry that the lettering on “mango” has become insufficiently austere. When challenged, he simply changes the account name.
The Bath researchers examined accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok over three months in 2025. They identified 120 TikTok accounts and 83 Instagram accounts apparently offering “THC” e-liquids. Based on visual analysis informed by laboratory testing, they concluded that nearly 70 percent of TikTok sellers and more than half of those on Instagram were likely offering Spice instead.
The platforms were duly alerted, and as of September 1, roughly 70 percent of the tracked accounts were still online and discoverable through simple searches.
This is where the government’s priorities begin to look peculiar, though. A vape shop is visible. It has shelves, staff, accounts, and (most usefully of all), a front door. It is, therefore, wonderfully convenient to regulate. The illegal seller, meanwhile, simply changes his profile picture.
Aim Accordingly
But then, none of this absolves the legal trade. Retailers should refuse underage sales, avoid childish marketing, and expect meaningful penalties when they do neither. Thankfully, most do exactly that (with the exception of sketchy High Street retailers, but that’s another story entirely). Nicotine is addictive, vaping is certainly not risk-free, and nobody sensible wants young people to vape – including responsible online retailers, who make every effort to discourage them from doing so.
But a legal nicotine vape and a Spice cartridge are not two versions of the same consumer product. One is a regulated nicotine product sold legally to adults, including former smokers. The other is an illegal drug sold under false pretenses, often to children, through platforms with sophisticated advertising systems and curiously unsophisticated powers of observation.
It should be noted that the government is not unaware of any of this. It warned last autumn that some products being sold as THC vapes were in fact turning up with synthetic cannabinoids in them, and Ofcom already has powers under the Online Safety Act to go after illegal drug sales online.
The difficulty is that a proper retailer is much easier to regulate. There is a business name, an address, staff, stock, and somebody who can be fined when the rules are broken. The people selling Spice through social media are rather less obliging.
That does not mean vape shops should be left alone. Anyone selling to children or ignoring the rules deserves to be dealt with. But it is a different problem from teenagers being sold synthetic drugs through Instagram and TikTok, and treating the two as though they are part of the same trade does not make much sense.
If the concern is Spice, then that is where the enforcement should be directed.
