Australian Government To Ban E-Cigarettes

The Australian government will ban e-cigarettes through a heavy set of controls on imports and packaging to discourage vaping, especially among teens, under its biggest smoking reforms in more than a decade.

Australian Health Minister Mark Butler on Tuesday said vaping has become a top behavioural issue in high schools and a growing problem in elementary schools but recognized that products have therapeutic use under the right circumstances.

Vaping involves heating a liquid that contains nicotine in an e-cigarette, which is vaporized and inhaled by the user. It is widely seen as an alternative to smoking cigarettes and a product to help smokers quit tobacco, but instead, teens and even young children are taking up vaping as an addictive habit globally.

“Vaping was sold to governments and communities around the world as a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit,” Butler said.

“It was not sold as a recreational product – in particular not one for our kids. But that is what it has become – the biggest loophole in Australian history.”

Announcing the new regulations, “non-prescription vapes will be banned from importation, and vape products will be required to have pharmaceutical-like packaging aimed at being sold as products to help smokers quit only.” Butler said

Brightly colored, fun-flavored packs that lured younger users will be restricted, and all single-use and disposable vapes will be banned, Butler added.

“This is a product targeted at our kids, sold alongside lollies and chocolate bars,” Butler said.

“Just like they did with smoking, let’s be clear about this, Big Tobacco has taken another addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging, and added flavors to create a new generation of nicotine addicts.”

Through Prescription
Before the changes were announced Tuesday, the only legal way to sell a nicotine vape in Australia was through a prescription provided by a doctor to a pharmacy – but the products were still widely sold across the country.

A “black market” of convenience stores and gas stations selling the nicotine vapes without any labelling or warnings to minors have thrived under a lack of regulation and action, according to Butler.

“No more bubblegum flavours. No more pink unicorns. No more vapes deliberately disguised as highlighter pens for kids to be able to hide them in their pencil cases,” the health minister added.

Nearly $20 million will be used to help Australians quit vaping and over $41 million earmarked for a national information campaign aimed at youths, Butler said. Australia’s tobacco tax will also be increased by 5% per year over the next three years, starting on September 1.

Vapes are disproportionately used by young people in Australia, even as the country has one of the lowest tobacco smoking rates among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, member states.

One in six teenagers ages 14 to 17 have tried vaping, while one in four people ages 18 to 24 have also tried the smoking alternative, Butler said. More shocking was the widespread availability of these products across the country – with four in five teenagers saying they could get vapes in their local retail stores without question.

CNN/Shakirat Sadiq