Potential new graphic health warnings as envisioned by Australia’s Department of Health and Aged Care
Australia will extend the requirement for manufacturers to print graphic health warnings on tobacco products to e-cigarettes, according to reports by CityNews and News. Manufacturers have until April 1, 2024, to roll out “repulsive” new health warnings on cigarette and vape packets. Retailers will be given a further three months to update their stock as new warning labels are gradually rolled out.
On Dec. 7, the country’s federal parliament passed a law with measures to discourage smoking and vaping. Among other provisions, the legislation updates the health warnings on cigarette packages, standardizes the design and appearance of cigarette filters and applies tobacco advertising restrictions to vapor products.
Earlier, Australia had announced a ban on single-use vapes that will take effect at the start of 2024. Starting in March, it will also be illegal to import or supply vapes that don’t comply with standards from the medical regulator. Doctors and nurses would still be able to prescribe therapeutic vapes as a tool to help smokers quit.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the new smoking laws would save lives.
“Tobacco has caused immeasurable harm and cost us countless lives in this country,” he told parliament. “We can’t stand by and allow another generation of people to be lured into addiction and suffer the enormous health, economic and social consequences.”
About 20 percent of Australian 18-year-olds to 24-year-olds vape while about one in seven 14-year-olds to 17-year-olds use the product.
Australia will ban imports of single-use e-cigarettes in January and all non-therapeutic vapes, including refillable devices, in March, reports Reuters. Importers of vapes for medical purposes will need a permit from the Office of Drug Control, according to Health Minister Mark Butler.
Additional legislation next year will apply the same restrictions to domestic manufacturers.
“These are the vapes that have pink unicorns on them, bubblegum flavoring, disguised in order for them to hide them in their pencil cases,” Butler was quoted as saying.
“This is not a therapeutic good to help hardened smokers kick the habit. This is a good that is deliberately targeted at kids to recruit them to nicotine addiction.”
Around one if five Australians aged 18 to 24 vape, according to government data.
To ensure continued access to vapes for smokers looking to quit, Doctors will be given expanded powers in January to prescribe therapeutic vapes when clinically appropriate.
Australia’s proposed crackdown on vaping is unlikely to achieve its objectives.
By Stefanie Rossel
As a vaper in Australia, you basically have two choices. The first option is to behave like a good citizen, go to your doctor, get a prescription and convince a pharmacist to sell it to you. The alternative is to be not so good and do what 92 percent of Australian vapers do—source your e-cigarettes on the black market. Vapes have been regulated Down Under since October 2021 but so poorly that Australian health professionals speaking at the Warsaw Global Forum on Nicotine in June apologized for the legislation.
Getting a prescription is more difficult than one might think, according to Carolyn Beaumont, an Australian general practitioner (GP) who advocates for the right of adult smokers to access vaping products. As Beaumont explained during her presentation, among the many barriers is the challenge to find a doctor who is not only familiar with vaping products but also believes in their potential as smoking cessation tools. But Australia is a huge country, where most of the population—and doctors—live along the Eastern Seaboard. In other regions, there are fewer physicians. Additionally, clinics may not be open daily, wait times are getting worse, and more GPs are charging privately. An estimated 20 percent of Australians have no regular GP; Beaumont said it could be even 35 percent.
Doctors often lack product knowledge and have an inadequate understanding of smoking, vaping and nicotine dependence. Tobacco harm reduction is not taught in Australia, according to Beaumont, and the medical guidelines are not supportive of vaping. Doctors also face an administrative barrier: They need to be registered as an authorized nicotine prescriber. However, the prevailing negative media narrative in Australia makes many GPs reluctant to register. In April 2023, the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care listed 1,963 authorized prescribers nationwide, which equals one in 20 practitioners.
Once vapers have secured a prescription, they need to find a pharmacy that sells vapes. But few establishments do so, and often, they have only limited stock. Vapes can also be ordered online and imported for personal use under the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s (TGA) personal importation scheme. With a valid prescription, Australians may legally import a three-month supply per order. “It remains illegal for other Australian retailers, such as tobacconists, vape shops and convenience stores, to sell you nicotine vaping products, even if you have a prescription,” the TGA stresses on its website.
At present, merely 8 percent of vapers have a prescription, and only 2 percent purchase from pharmacies, according to a Roy Morgain survey in February 2023.
Additional Restrictions
Colin Mendelsohn
Things are unlikely to get easier for smokers seeking less hazardous alternatives to combustible cigarettes. In May 2023, Health Minister Mark Butler announced a further crackdown on recreational vaping. He claimed that vaping had been advertised to the public as a therapeutic product meant to help smokers quit but instead spawned a new generation of nicotine users, particularly young people. At press time, details on the new rules were unavailable, but tobacco harm reduction advocates were bracing for restrictions on disposable vapes, flavor options and nicotine concentrations, along with a requirement to package vaping products in pharmaceutical-style packaging and an end to the personal importation scheme, with sales permitted only through authorized pharmacies.
Writing on his blog, professor Simon Chapman, a determined opponent of vaping, suggested that Butler might ban refillable vaporizers as well. The planned legislation will require federal authorities to seize products at the border and states to police retail sales, but so far, it has not allocated any funding to enforcement.
The proposed plan is de facto prohibition, according to Colin Mendelsohn, a former GP who has been helping smokers quit for more than 30 years. “It is a doubling down on a failed highly restrictive model that has been rejected by vapers and prescribing doctors and has created a thriving black market, which sells freely to underage users,” he says. “The history of prohibition and the war on drugs shows consistently that it does not reduce long-term illicit drug supply, and there is no reason to believe that this will be different. Bans are effective short-term political strategies but are bad public health policy. The Australian Border Force (ABF) does not have the resources or interest in intercepting vapes and is correctly more focused on dangerous illicit drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, ice, etc., or weapons.”
In an interview in May, ABF Chief Michael Outram warned that banning vapes at the border wouldn’t be enough to stamp out a rampant black market, as his organization managed to intercept barely 75 percent to 80 percent of illicit drugs making their way into Australia “on a good day.” Of the 8 million containers coming into the country each year, only 1 percent to 1.5 percent are scanned.
The proposed crackdown, cautions Mendelsohn, will likely have many unintended consequences. “Criminal networks will continue to find ways to import vapes,” he says. “This is a high-profit and low-risk crime, and it is accompanied by stand-over tactics, such as firebombing of retail outlets, gang wars and violence, and corruption of officials. The proceeds fund other, more serious criminal activities. There will be continuing sales to youth and more difficult legal access for adult smokers. Some vapers will relapse to smoking. It will be harder for current smokers to switch to vaping.”
According to Mendelsohn, the planned law will criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens who simply want to improve their health, and cause the government to lose revenue from taxes, licensing and vape shops while shouldering increased cost of policing, enforcement, the justice system and prisons. “We will continue to see dodgy, mislabeled, unregulated products with high nicotine levels,” he says. “The harm from unregulated black market products was demonstrated during the EVALI [e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury] outbreak. There will also be higher prices, increased drug potency [and] stockpiling of nicotine e-liquids prior to the change. All legal, legitimate vape businesses will be closed. It’s a violation of the human right to access a safer alternative to smoking.”
Unsuccessful Measures
Low-income and otherwise disadvantaged people, among whom rates of smoking and smoking-related death and disease are significantly higher than in the rest of the population, will be disproportionately affected, according to Mendelsohn. “Australian research has shown that vaping may help to reduce health inequalities,” he says. “Smoking is a leading cause of financial stress in disadvantaged populations, especially at a time of sluggish wage growth, high interest rates and a high cost of living. Spending is diverted from food, clothing, etc., to smoking.”
Australia has the highest cigarette prices in the world, with a pack of 20 retailing at AUD40 ($25.60). Based on a consumption of 13 cigarettes a day, the average cost of smoking is AUD11,850 per year. Vaping, by comparison, costs AUD500 to AUD1,500 per year, depending on the device used.
“At the current high levels, further tax rises are no longer effective due to the law of diminishing returns,” says Mendelsohn. “Many addicted smokers are simply unable to quit no matter how high the price. Smoking rates in Australia have not declined over the last four years in spite of high prices, plain packaging and other tobacco control strategies.”
So where’s the consumer in all of this? Mendelsohn says that the lack of a consumer voice is a big problem. “We had a New Nicotine Alliance AU, which disbanded about five years ago. Recently, the Australian Smokefree Alternatives Consumer Association was formed but is still very quiet. Legalise Vaping is a part of the Australian Taxpayers Association and is the most active advocacy group. I believe they have had some indirect tobacco company funding in the past, but they are focused on legalizing and regulating vaping and the rights of adults to make their own choices. Overall, they do an excellent job with limited resources. All anti-vaping groups are subject to great scrutiny and are smeared and undermined by anti-vaping advocates if there is any potential opportunity.”
Ideology Instead of Science
Butler’s plan has attracted criticism from several institutions. On July 8, internal confidential e-mails sent by members of the Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ANACAD) expressed concerns about further restrictions, saying it would exacerbate the black market problem, criminalize more people and make smoking more attractive. On July 18, Mendelsohn and a group of more than 40 experts from Australia and New Zealand urged lawmakers to listen to the ANACAD ahead of Butler’s proposed vaping crackdown. At the time of this interview, they had not received a response to their letter.
Mendelsohn is not optimistic that Butler will change course. “Butler has committed himself to this crackdown, and there is no indication that he will soften his approach,” he says. “He is taking advice from a small group of ideologically driven tobacco control academics and health bureaucrats with extreme anti-vaping views.” According to Mendelsohn, Butler operates in a bubble and is ignoring the pro-vaping arguments. “He has refused to meet with Dr. Wodak [a fellow tobacco harm reduction proponent] and me, although we met with his adviser, who was clearly committed to a predetermined position,” says Mendelsohn. “He is under considerable pressure from Australian health charities, medical associations, public health organizations and state governments that are almost universally opposed to vaping. The media is also hostile to vaping. Any turnaround will be very difficult politically.”
Vaping policy in Australia, says Mendelsohn, is driven by ideology rather than science. “Australia’s peak health and medical research organization, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), prepared an anti-vaping position paper on vaping. The NHMRC is very influential in guiding national health policy. The NHMRC document was critiqued in a peer-reviewed article in Addiction by leading Australian and international experts and found to be riddled with serious scientific flaws and misinformation. However, it remains unchanged.”
For sensible regulation of vaping, says Mendelsohn, Australia should look to its neighbor, New Zealand, which in August 2020 legalized and regulated vaping. “Over the next two years, there was an unprecedented 33 percent decline in the adult smoking rate among those aged 15 and over—from 13.7 percent to 9.2 percent. In Australia during the same period, the smoking rate increased by 4.5 percent. In that time, there have been no major smoke-free policy interventions, almost no mass media spend on quit campaigns and no tobacco tax increases in NZ.”
Lessons From Drug Policy
Alex Wodak
Alex Wodak, Mendelsohn’s ally in the battle for harm reduction-based legislation, is more confident that Australia will eventually change its stance on vaping. Wodak has dedicated his career to drug harm reduction and was instrumental in reforming drug law in Australia. Together with colleagues, he created the country’s first needle exchange program in 1986 and its first medically supervised injecting center in 1999. At this time, both were pre-legal.
He observes parallels with his country’s current crackdown on vaping. “The World Health Organization opposed drug harm reduction, including needle and syringe programs for a few years in the 1990s, apparently relenting to intense U.S. pressure,” says Wodak. “The default policy for communities, governments and the WHO for new drugs, new forms of drug administration and new forms of drug harm reduction is generally negative. It seems sensible to be initially cautious about changing situations regarding drugs, but we have a problem when the opposition to a new form of drug harm reduction is maintained long after the evidence of effectiveness and safety has become compelling, especially when the costs of delay are so substantial as they are with needle and syringe programs and tobacco harm reduction.
“The case in favor of vaping and other forms of tobacco harm reduction is now overwhelming. Smokers increasingly prefer to continue to use nicotine but prefer to consume it in safer ways. Many traded tobacco companies are transforming from combustible cigarettes to safer products, some faster than others, but they are changing. Investors pay higher prices for tobacco companies transforming more rapidly. Unfortunately, tobacco control, governments and the WHO are still resisting change, which now seems inevitable. This change is an enormous opportunity for public health, similar to the scale of the benefits from vaccination.”
Wodak remembers the time when harm reduction was refused in favor of an abstinence-only approach in drug policy circles. “The political debate lags behind the scientific debate,” he says. “There are many lessons from this experience. It is important to continue improving the quantity and quality of evidence. It eventually does make a difference. Being polite and respectful to harm reduction opponents matters. So does persistence. There are no shortcuts. Harm reduction involves consequentialism—that is, making an assessment of both the benefits and costs of a policy or intervention. Opposition to harm reduction often involves deontology—that is, following a set principle, such as aiming for a tobacco-free—or nicotine-free—outcome rather than a smoke-free outcome. The net effect of the policy or intervention is not a concern.”
Staying Power Needed
The current approach of the Australian government to vaping is unsustainable, Wodak emphasizes. “It is destined to collapse sooner or later,” he says. “Opponents of harm reduction are unable to justify why a far safer option is severely restricted while a deadly option remains readily available. Despite dominating politics, mainstream media and medical and health publications, 73 percent of Australians support vaping being regulated like cigarettes and alcohol while only 20 percent support prescription-only regulation of vaping.”
The new approach announced by Butler on May 1 requires legislation to be passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. “This legislation will most likely be passed by the House of Representatives but is unlikely to be passed by the Senate,” says Wodak. “The black market currently meets 92 percent of the demand from a rapidly growing number of adult Australian vapers, now estimated to number 1.3 million. Although the government asserts it will strengthen law enforcement border efforts to reduce the number of illegal vapes entering Australia, now estimated at about 10 million per month, no additional funds have been provided for this purpose. Heroin was prohibited 70 years ago in Australia. However, in 2022, a survey of people who use drugs found that 87 percent said that obtaining heroin was ‘easy’ or ‘very easy.’ When demand for a good or service is strong and controls are easy to subvert, as is the case with vaping, other sources of supply almost invariably emerge.”
Wodak views the battle for vaping reform in Australia through the lens of drug harm reduction rather than from a perspective of tobacco control. “I have been involved in battles for drug law reform in Australia over about 40 years. We have won almost all of these battles, although it has often taken more time and effort than we would have preferred. I am very confident that tobacco harm reduction will prevail in Australia. Taking a bet against drug harm reduction is very brave as harm reduction almost always wins.”
Stefanie Rossel is Tobacco Reporter’s editorial contributor. An experienced trade journalist, she combines sharp reporting skills with in-depth knowledge of the tobacco and vapor industries. Prior to joining Tobacco Reporter, Stefanie was editor-in-chief at Tobacco Journal International, where she worked for a decade. Fluent in English, German and French, Stefanie covers tobacco news around the world. She is based in Germany.
Philip Morris will supply some Australian pharmacies with VEEV products at an 80 percent margin “introductory offer” if the pharmacies sign a supply deal directly with the company, according to The Guardian.
The offer is on condition that pharmacies do not sell a pack of two VEEV pods for more than $14.90 or VEEV devices for more than $19.90, which is cheaper than the prices wholesalers can offer.
Simon Chapman, emeritus professor of public health and tobacco control at the University of Sydney, accused PMI of “playing a long game here to wreck the prescription access model by disrupting the competition.”
“PMI [has] been implacably opposed to the provision of nicotine vaping products via prescription, actively lobbying for a consumer model,” Chapman said.
“Their efforts in Australia to eliminate competition via the 80 percent margin to pharmacists need to be considered in the context of its global ambitions to oppose prescribed access. Any tobacco company still actively marketing tobacco products and opposing effective tobacco control while ostensibly trying [to] promote a product with claims to move significant customers away from its tobacco products is trying to walk on both sides of the street.”
PMI has been lobbying Members of Parliament to overturn the country’s ban on vaping.
Pharmacy and health groups should urge members not to prescribe VEEV products or enter into agreements involving VEEV, said Chapman.
The pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) urged pharmacists to be skeptical of PMI’s offer. “There are currently no nicotine vaping products registered on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, and no company should be advertising unregulated products to Australian healthcare professionals,” a PSA spokesperson said.
Nick Zwar, chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners smoking cessation advisory group, said general practitioners “would want to know if it was a product that was owned by a tobacco company.”
“Our view is that medicine should be distributed through national wholesalers because that provides comfort to the doctors and the pharmacies that these products are being treated as medicines as they should be,” said Richard Lee, CEO of Liber Pharmaceuticals. “Anybody can present a script anywhere, whereas under the Philip Morris arrangement, people will have to present a script at a pharmacy that has done a deal with Philip Morris to get that product.”
“We have always been open and transparent about the fact we will work within whatever legal and regulatory framework exists for these products in Australia,” a PMI spokesperson said. “This is in stark contrast to dozens of other vaping companies who are providing their product via the black market.”
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) is calling on the New Zealand government to reject Australia’s approach to vaping and continue to follow the science and evidence.
CAPHRA has submitted comments on New Zealand’s proposals for the smoked tobacco regulatory regime, which include tightening current restrictions on vaping product safety requirements and packaging and reducing nicotine levels in disposable vapes as well as restricting the location of specialist vape retailers.
“CAPHRA believes that the regulations, as they are, work perfectly well, and that further restrictions will only serve to limit access to safer nicotine products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco,” says CAPHRA executive coordinator and prominent New Zealand public health consumer advocate Nancy Loucas.
“The announcement that New Zealand would not follow Australia’s lead to a full prescription model for nicotine vaping further reinforces the need for a harm reduction approach that is based on science and evidence, not scaremongering by crowing Australians.”
CAPHRA believes that the regulations, as they are, work perfectly well, and that further restrictions will only serve to limit access to safer nicotine products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco.
In a press note announcing its submission to New Zealand’s proposals, CAPHRA cites an article in The Critic, “The Vape Scare Down Under,” which describes the Australian government’s approach to vaping is misguided and based on fear rather than evidence. The article argues that the government’s proposed ban on flavored e-cigarettes is not supported by the evidence and will only serve to drive vapers back to smoking. The article also highlights the success of vaping in reducing smoking rates in countries like the U.K. and New Zealand.
“Unfortunately, the vaping debate has become highly political instead of being about the science or the evidence which continues to show that vaping is reducing smoking rates around the world,” says Loucas.
CAPHRA continues to urge the New Zealand government to take a risk-proportionate approach to regulations that protect public health while ensuring the availability of these products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco.
“New Zealand should not follow Australia’s policy on vaping, and instead continue to follow a harm reduction approach that is based on science and evidence. Harm reduction should be the driving force behind tobacco policy, and regulations should be risk-proportionate and protect public health while ensuring the availability of these products for adult smokers seeking less harmful alternatives to combustible tobacco,” Loucas said.
Australia will face tougher tobacco regulations in the next two years if legislation proposed by Health Minister Mark Butler is adopted, according to ABC News.
The proposed legislation calls for a standardized size for tobacco packets and products, a standardized design for filters, health warnings on individual cigarettes, public health information in loose-leaf and cigarette packets, a ban on flavors and additives like menthol, and a restrictions on certain names used on packaging.
“[There are] names that are designed to mislead users, [that suggest] the cigarettes they are using are somehow going to be good for them, names like smooth or fresh burst,” Butler said. “These things are a cynical deliberate marketing strategy to bring new smokers into this public health menace and will be prohibited in this legislation.”
“The legislation that was put in place by former minister Nicola Roxon had a sunset date of April 1, 2024,” Butler said. “So if we do not pass replacement legislation, the current suite of regulations around plain packaging, graphic warnings and the like will lapse on April 1, so we intended to get this legislation passed by the Parliament before April 2024.”
The government of Australia plans to crack down on illicit tobacco trade and increase tobacco excise by 5 percent annually for three years from Sept. 1, reports The Guardian.
“These changes to tobacco excise are part of the government’s response to the National Tobacco Strategy and related initiatives on vaping and smoking prevention and cessation, and an enhanced regulatory approach to vaping,” the budget papers say.
In addition, Australia will ban the import of all vaping products sold without a prescription, including e-liquid and hardware that contains no nicotine, reports Vaping360.
In a recently published document, the government outlined its long-term vaping and tobacco plan.
The government’s plan comes in the wake of growing concern about disposable nicotine vapes sold in convenience stores. Its proposed measures, however, will also impact Australia’s specialized vape shops.
Rules for non-nicotine vapes will be tightened as well, with a ban on nontobacco flavors and a requirement to sell products in plain packaging.
The government says it will also reduce allowable nicotine strengths and ban disposable vapes outright.
Health Minister Mark Butler blames the tobacco industry—which sells no vaping products in Australia—for creating a “new generation of nicotine addicts.”
Critics say the plan will not benefit public health because it will continue to allow consumers to buy cigarettes—and without a prescription—at every corner store in Australia.
In its press release announcing the new measures, Butler says new tobacco taxes will raise an additional $3.3 billion over the next four years. Australia already has one of the highest cigarette tax rates in the world, which has led to a large illicit tobacco market.
Nicotine vaping products have been illegal in Australia without a prescription for many years, but the laws have been widely ignored by vapers, who imported nicotine from overseas and made their own e-liquid or bought zero-nicotine vape juice from vape shops and added nicotine, according to Vaping360.
In 2021, the previous Liberal coalition government launched a revised prescription-only model for nicotine vaping products and promised to ramp up border enforcement. However, few doctors chose to participate in the prescription program, and most consumers weren’t interested. Vape shops were allowed to continue selling zero-nicotine e-liquid and vaping hardware that contained no nicotine. Soon after, disposable vapes flooded Australia (and the rest of the world).
The current government says it will make it “easier to get a prescription for legitimate therapeutic use,” but it’s not clear that vaping consumers will be eager to jump through medical hoops to buy flavorless or tobacco-flavored, low-nicotine vape products.
The Australian government announced that it will ban the importation of all nonprescription vaping products—including those that do not contain nicotine. The new legislation is billed as containing the most significant tobacco and vaping control measures in the country in a decade.
The announcement today clarifies last week’s announcement of a crackdown on illegal vaping. This time, the government said it would now include a total ban on nonprescription vaping products.
To tackle youth vaping, minimum quality standards for vapes will be introduced, including restricting flavors, colors 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, according to The Guardian.
Speaking on ABC’s Q&A on Monday night, Australia’s health minister, Mark Butler, said that the tobacco industry was trying to create a “new generation of nicotine addicts” through vaping and that he was “determined to stamp out this public health menace.”
The move follows an inquiry into vaping reforms led by the drugs regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, with submissions from health professional bodies, public health associations, individual health professionals and university researchers that overwhelmingly support tightening border controls.
Many public health experts and bodies suggested to the inquiry that border controls should also be placed on non-nicotine vaping products to prevent mislabeling and exploitation of import loopholes. It follows manufacturers falsely labeling products containing nicotine as “nicotine-free” to get around import restrictions, leaving children easily able to buy vapes, often unknowingly inhaling nicotine and becoming addicted.
The government will also work with states and territories to end vape sales in convenience stores and other retailers. Prescriptions for nicotine vaping products for smokers trying to quit tobacco will be made easier to obtain, with stronger standards around the vaping products that can be bought in pharmacies so people can be assured of the content of the products.
Butler said he will expand on the reforms in a speech to the National Press Club on Tuesday, where he is expected to say vaping has become “the biggest loophole in Australian history” and announce that the following Tuesday’s federal budget will include AUD234 million ($156.22 million) in funding for tobacco and vaping reforms, the biggest since plain packaging of tobacco products was introduced.
Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council’s (NHMRC) statement on e-cigarettes fails to meet the scientific standard expected of a leading national scientific body, according to 11 addiction scientists, reports Medical Express.
Published in June 2022, the NHMRC statement aims to provide “public health advice on the safety and impacts of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) based on review of the current evidence.”
This critique of the NHMRC statement, published in Addiction, argues that the statement inaccurately summarizes the current evidence on e-cigarettes. The authors contend that the NHMRC exaggerates the risks of vaping and fails to compare them with smoking; incorrectly claims that adolescent vaping causes subsequent smoking; and ignores evidence of the benefits of vaping in helping smokers quit.
The NHMRC statement also ignores evidence that vaping is likely already having a positive effect on public health and misapplies the precautionary principle, which requires policymakers to compare the risks of introducing a product with the risks of delaying its introduction.
“Many leading international scientists in the field hold more supportive views than the NHMRC on the potential of e-cigarettes as a strategy to improve public health,” said Colin Mendelsohn, lead author of the Addiction article. “In particular, invoking the precautionary principle to prevent the use of much less harmful smoke-free products is unjustified in the face of the massive public health burden of smoking.”
Police in Queensland, Australia, seized illegal vapes and tobacco worth AUD500,000 ($342.4321), reports The Daily Mail.
Law enforcement officers allegedly seized 100 kg of illicit tobacco, thousands of vapes and $80,000 cash while executing a search warrant. Two people have been charged and went to court. They will reappear in Mackay Magistrates Court on March 13.
The warrant and arrests were part of Operation Kitimat, an investigation into reports of vapes and tobacco products being sold to minors.
“Operation Kitimat identified that the peak trading times were prior to 9 a.m. and after 3 p.m., which corroborates significant information we received from members of the public,” Mackay Whitsunday District Detective Inspector Emma Novosel said.
“The operation was aimed to disrupt this criminal enterprise and send a clear message that such activity, including the sale of tobacco and smoking products to children, will not be tolerated in Mackay Whitsunday District.
