Introduction:
Legal regulations are recognized as one of the most important tools used to prevent the use of nicotine containing products.

Objectives:
The study objective was to evaluate the youth’s awareness of existing legislation banning e-cigarette advertising, promotion, sponsorship, and use of those products in school building.

Methods:
A cross-sectional study was conducted between 2017 and 2018 among 1722 secondary and 787 high school students from Piotrkowski district. An anonymous, self-administered questionnaire adapted from the GYTS was implemented so as to collect information on the e-cigarette use status, awareness of the existing legislation and its enforcement.

Results:
About 32% of the youth declared current e-cigarette use. Despite the amendment of Tobacco Control Act banning e-cigarette advertising, promotion and sponsorship, about 4% of the students declared that they had seen e-cigarette advertising on TV, 7% in newspapers, 60% in the point of sale and 70% in the internet. What is more, 43% of the youth declared that they had seen celebrities using such products. Half of the study population was not able to indicate if there was a ban on e-cigarette sponsorship of the youth events. Only 40% of the study participants indicated a ban on e-cigarette use in school buildings or school premises, while the rest did not have such knowledge or indicated that e-cigarette use was allowed in the selected places. Everyday violation of regulations by employees was indicated by 16% of the respondents, while the daily violation of these provisions by students was reported by more than 25% of the youth. There were no significant differences in the percentages of the students being aware of the existing regulations depending on a school grade (p>0.05).

Conclusion(s):
More effort should be made to inform young people about legal regulations on e-cigarettes and to enforce the relevant law.

Funding:
This study was supported by the Local Government of the Piotrkowski District (grant number: AZ-I.033.2.2014), Medical University of Lodz (grant no. 503/6-024-01/503-66-001. The funding bodies had no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data, and in writing the manuscript.