‘I’m like a fine wine connoisseur’: the vapers fuming at Australia’s tough new laws and lack of flavours

‘I won’t go back to cigarettes, but some of my friends who converted to vaping have already started to smoke again,’ one vaper says ahead of the changes coming into effect on 1 July. Photograph: Nicholas T Ansell/PA

While many might see vaping as a grotesque threat to the health of young people, and will welcome the so-called toughest vape laws in the world, seasoned vapers beg to differ.

Mark* has been vaping for more than 15 years. He used the device to break a 15-year, two-pack-a-day addiction to cigarettes. He loves his vapes. Mark says the new laws, which kick in on 1 July, are infantilising, contradictory and a backwards step.