The fact that vejpning has become a red flag for Finnish authorities became clear during the major music festival Ruisrock in Turku. Nearly 90 people were fined - for vaping on e-cigarettes.
In Finland, the rules on e-cigarettes are among the strictest in Europe. Road products flavoured with something other than flavoured tobacco are completely banned, the nicotine content of legal products cannot exceed 20 mg/ml, and selling vejp products online is prohibited. Using or possessing stronger products is considered an offence under the Tobacco Act and can lead to a fine or reporting to the police.
Ruisrock on the other hand is a festival mainly focused on rock and metal, organised annually since the 1970s on the island of Runsala in Turku. This makes it the oldest rock festival in Finland and the second oldest rock festival in Europe.
Everything from Nirvana to Rammstein, Iron Maiden to U2 and most others under the umbrella term "rock" have played here. But a summer like this is unprecedented - as the police have had to fight the devastating "pandemic" that they consider vejpning to be.
"The road spraying was crazy"
This year, the police in south-west Finland carried out an extensive operation against vejpare in the public sea. According to Chief Constable Janne Aro-Heinilä, who was interviewed by Yle - Finland's equivalent of SVT - the police issued around 90 tickets and criminal reports, solely related to the use or possession of unauthorised e-cigarettes.
- "The public 1TP8 smoking was absolutely wild there," he tells Yle.
Aro-Heinilä has long experience in drug-related law enforcement, but has recently turned his attention to vejp. Over the past year, the number of seizures of illegal vejp models and nicotine liquids has increased significantly, especially at large events. At Ruisrock, this trend was clearly visible - even among the very young. According to the police, products were seized from children as young as 11 years old.
In parallel, 47 suspects were arrested for drug offences during the festival, which attracted 105 000 visitors this year.
Buying in boxes
The authorities did not catch any sellers on the festival grounds themselves, the police say. Instead, Aro-Heinilä points to sales via apps like Telegram as a growing problem. According to him, there is a significant amount of second-hand sales, with young people ordering large quantities of nicotine-strength vejps from abroad, for their own use or to make a buck.
- We have met students who buy a box of ten vapes and sell them on with little profit," he told Yle.
He stresses that any sale of nicotine liquids with more than 20 mg/ml of nicotine is considered smuggling - even if it is a small number of products brought in from a holiday trip. In such cases, the limit for personal use is set at 200 milligrams in total.
Pointing out health risks
Although the police in Finland clearly classify vejp as a public order issue, the tone from the authorities is harsher than in many countries where both cannabis and opioids are much bigger social problems. In interviews, the police refer to the long-term health risks and the risk of nicotine addiction - but from a Swedish perspective, there may be some question marks about chasing colourful plastic sticks harder than hard drugs.
Last year, Finnish police issued around 400 fines for vejp-related offences. This year, they have already issued almost a quarter of that - in a single weekend.
- Many young people already know that they will be fined, but we do it anyway - as a preventive measure," says Aro-Heinilä.
