As calls grow to ban disposable nicotine vapes, a criminologist warns that it could do more harm than good.
When the federal government opted to increase taxes on tobacco to curb smoking, Deakin University senior criminology lecturer Dr James Martin predicted it would trigger a mammoth black market.
In 2013, tobacco taxes increased by 12.5 per cent and continued to increase each year.
"The purpose behind that was there's good evidence from around the world that increasing tobacco prices is a really good way to get people to quit," Dr Martin said.
"It's been quite effective in that. But we're starting to encounter problems with this policy."
Black market booming
Dr Martin said increased tobacco taxes had fast-tracked the uptake of vaping in Australia while the black market tobacco industry had boomed.
Black market vendors could sell tobacco for about half the price of regulated markets and had begun to include nicotine vapes in their offerings.
Dr Martin said this was a consequence of supply and demand.
"If you're a smoker who has been priced out of having access to legal cigarettes, you still want to consume that nicotine," he said.
"You can either steal cigarettes, or you can access the black market to cigarettes, or you can access the black market for vaping."
He says people will look for substitutes, a pattern of "illicit markets that we see all around the world".
"Simply restricting supply, whether it's through taxation, or just outright prohibition, doesn't necessarily mean that it results in less use," Dr Martin said.
Losing control of vape ingredients
Australian Patients Association health reform ambassador and former Australia deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth said issues with vaping in Australia were not straightforward.
"If there's a black market of vaping products, then we actually have absolutely no control over finding out what's actually in the vapes themselves," he said.
"We know that a lot of these are manufactured overseas, including in China, in poorly regulated conditions.
"So paradoxically, if you do a blanket ban … you have no way of regulating the product, and we know that kids are still going to get their hands on this stuff."
Only clean air is safe to inhale
But Dr Coatsworth said he still supported the idea of a blanket ban, particularly in the short-term while the medium and long-term effects of vaping were studied.
"If the usage doesn't go down in response to banning and public health messaging, then we may well need to re-evaluate our position," he said.
Dr Coatsworth said one of the primary reasons for his position was to stop young people from forming a nicotine addiction.
"I think the main thing that we've got to consider with vaping is that there is a double-edged sword," he said.
"It can be a useful tool for adults who are addicted to nicotine and smoke cigarettes as a transition away from cigarettes, there's no doubt about that.
"But at the same time, it's become a real problem for young Australians, and I think that's why we're taking this harsher regulatory stance now.
"And whilst it may be the case [that] it's preferable to have a vape instead of a cigarette, the actual truth is the only safe thing to go into your lungs is clean air."
Giving smokers 'a carrot and stick'
Dr Martin pointed to policies in the United Kingdom and New Zealand where people were able to legally buy nicotine vapes without a doctor's prescription.
"The point around that is to try and give smokers both a carrot and stick option.
"So you make tobacco more expensive on the one hand, and on the other hand, to give people access to a … harmful, but less harmful alternative in the form of vapes," Dr Martin said.
"In Australia, we haven't done that. You can only get nicotine [vapes] legally with a doctor's prescription, and very, very few people do that."
He said nine out of 10 people accessed vapes illegally, and they usually contained very high concentrations of nicotine.
Dr Martin called Australia's approach to drugs and prohibition a "bit topsy-turvy" and highlighted the debate around alcohol and cannabis.
"We know that alcohol is a far more dangerous drug than cannabis, not to say cannabis doesn't have harms associated with it, but they don't really compare to the harms associated with alcohol," he said.
"And yet we can buy alcohol at [a range] of stores in the country whereas cannabis is only available legally with a prescription," he said.
