New vaping reforms announced on Monday will see the importation of nicotine and non-nicotine vaping products banned in Australia except to pharmacies, along with a range of other measures.
Here’s what we know about the reforms, and the detail that is still lacking.
What is the new policy?
The Australian government will ban the importation of nonprescription vaping products – including those that do not contain nicotine. Minimum quality standards for vapes will be introduced, including restricting flavours, colours and other ingredients. Vape products will require pharmaceutical-like packaging, and the allowed nicotine concentrations and volumes will be reduced. All single-use, disposable vapes will be banned.
The reforms aim to make it easier for smokers wanting to quit tobacco smoking to get a prescription and to understand the contents of the vaping products they then buy. Currently, a medical practitioner has to apply for authority to become an “authorised prescriber” of nicotine vaping products; under the reforms, all GPs will be able to provide a prescription.
Tobacco companies and vaping lobbyists, and even some harm reduction experts have suggested that Australia’s vaping reforms amount to prohibition. This understandably concerns people, given the criminalisation of drugs requires huge justice system resources and fails to reduce harm.
Will people be fined for vaping on the street without a prescription?
The federal health minister, Mark Butler, said the target of these reforms are the importers and the vendors, not consumers. It is already illegal to sell vapes to under 18-year-olds, yet convenience stores and online retailers have flouted these regulations by falsely selling nicotine-containing products as “nicotine-free”.
Butler told ABC Radio Adelaide on Wednesday morning that “I don’t think any state has a law in place that penalises people using vapes”.
“The laws focus on vendors, not on people, not on customers, certainly not on kids, and that’s what we want to see enforced,” he said.
Is the government only targeting vaping liquid, or the devices too?
The intention is to restrict all products used for vaping including devices, e-liquids and pods.
How will these reforms be enforced at the retail level?
Butler told ABC Adelaide the states and territories need to work out the penalty regime details with the federal government.
The current system of seizing vapes, sending them off for testing to see if they contain nicotine – which the bulk of those seized do – and then penalising vendors has been resource intensive and has failed to deter vendors from illegally selling to children.
The government hopes that by stopping all imports at the border, aside from those bound for pharmacies, there will be less resources required to police vendors. But this will need to be monitored to ensure the market isn’t driven underground. However, the key aim of the reforms is to make it harder for the products to get to children.
“There’s going to have to be a set of strong penalties against vendors who breach this new law … we want to see this stamped out, there should not be a product being sold in retail settings to kids alongside lollies and chocolates,” Butler said.
Why can people buy cigarettes from a retailer but not vapes?
Butler has said there is no plan to follow New Zealand in outlawing cigarettes, despite some public health experts in Australia calling on the government to do so, and growing public support for such a measure. Tobacco remains the leading preventable cause of death and disease in Australia.
The government is targeting vapes, they say, because of their uptake by children. Cigarettes are not prolific in schools, are not being marketed as aggressively towards children in Australia and are not the cause of the significant behavioural problems that teachers have been reporting.
Cigarettes are also cost-prohibitive to most children, and – unfortunately – some parents are allowing their children to vape under the belief the products are safe. The vaping and tobacco lobby have successfully pushed the debunked claim that vaping is “95% safer” than smoking.
The government is funding a vaping education campaign as part of their reforms, as well as extra measures to control tobacco, such as a tax hike.
When will the measures take effect?
While Butler said the reforms will be implemented with urgency, the commonwealth, states and territories are still working on the precise terms of the regulations. New legislation will be required, and a transition period may also be needed.
