More than 600 additional shops began selling vape products in New South Wales in the first half of 2023, a drastic increase that occurred despite the federal government announcing tough reforms that will ban sales from convenience stores.
The sharp rise comes despite laws that dictate that the only legal way to buy nicotine-containing vapes is from a pharmacist with a prescription from a doctor.
People aged 18 and over can buy vapes from retailers if the products don’t contain nicotine. And retailers that sell non-nicotine vapes and related products in NSW must register their business details with the state health department.
But the majority of non-nicotine vapes sold by retailers do in fact contain nicotine and are being obtained easily by children, who are becoming addicted to nicotine.
For this reason the importation of nicotine and non-nicotine vapes will be banned from March 2024 as part of a suite of reforms announced in 2022 by the federal government.
The importation of single-use disposable vapes will be banned from January 2024, subject to legislative and administrative approvals. The reforms will force vape retailers to close or get rid of their vape stock.
From March only pharmacies with a licence will be able to import and supply nicotine vapes to people with a prescription.
Despite the impending crackdown, data obtained by Guardian Australia shows that between 1 January 2023 and 30 June 2023, 633 retailers notified NSW Health that they were selling e-cigarette products. In the same period last year, 326 retailers notified NSW Health that they were selling the products.
The NSW chief health officer, Dr Kerry Chant, told Guardian Australia that “clearly, the majority” of vapes being sold by retailers contained nicotine, and as a result the public health unit had significantly increased compliance activity. Officers target stores selling to children and selling vapes that contain nicotine.
Between 1 April 2022 and 30 September 2023, NSW Health seized more than 485,000 e-cigarettes and e-liquids containing nicotine worth an estimated street value of more than $15.5m, according to Chant.
She did not speculate on why stores continued to open in the face of reforms, but said “it clearly has some profitability”.
“We are doing as much compliance activity as we possibly can, seizing products, taking court action, and implementing on-the-spot fines,” she said.
Chant said she had written to retailers “highlighting that they should not rely on the label on products that they don’t contain nicotine”.
“Some premises have adopted a view that this [selling vapes] is not aligned with their values. So I think that’s really positive.”
She said the commonwealth reforms would eventually significantly limit supply. But she added: “Supply is so widespread … our compliance officers can only do a component of the work.”
A NSW health department spokesperson said the sale of liquid nicotine products was one of the most common types of complaints received by the department.
The number of tobacco and e-cigarette complaints increased from 909 in 2020 to 2,407 in 2022. Between 1 January 2023 and 30 June 2023, there were 1,654 reports of non-compliance, she said.
There was an “alarming” number of stores still selling vapes, said the University of Sydney tobacco control expert Prof Becky Freeman.
“While I agree profit is the primary driver here, I also think that these retailers may also believe that the intense lobbying by the vape and tobacco industry will be successful, and that Australian vape laws will be weakened,” Freeman said.
“And these are just the retailers who are supposedly following the rules and actually notifying NSW Health that they sell e-cigarettes. Given that the majority of vaping products being sold are illicit products that contain nicotine, these figures are likely to be a conservative estimate of the actual numbers of retailers selling vapes.”
She said vaping availability “is mirroring how we sell tobacco” with this highly addictive product accessible “on every street corner”. As previously reported by Guardian Australia, many new vape stores are opening near schools and also selling lollies.
“The industry, including retailers, has deliberately created a highly profitable illicit market, and now they say the only solution is to allow these very same retailers to legally sell nicotine vapes,” Freeman said. “The bald-faced self-interest is truly something to behold.”
In Victoria retailers are not required to notify the health department of their intention to sell tobacco products, including e-cigarettes.
The secretary of Victoria’s health department, Euan Wallace, told parliament’s public accounts and estimates committee on Friday that Victoria was the only state that didn’t have a licensing scheme for e-cigarettes, with no register of vendors.
Wallace said in the 2021-22 financial year authorised officers made 6,952 monitoring visits to tobacco and e-cigarette stores – well above the department’s target of 3,500. But there was only one prosecution, with 44 fines issued and 566 businesses given a verbal warning.
But Victorian councils maintain a database of businesses that sell e-cigarette products. The City of Melbourne alone, which includes the central city and Melbourne’s innermost suburbs, said it had about 250 tobacco and e-cigarette retailers.
