- Tiffany Turnbull
- BBC – Australia
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Australia already has a requirement to provide a medical certificate to use e-cigarettes
Australia plans to ban recreational vaping as part of a wider campaign aimed at combating what experts have called an “epidemic”.
The sale of e-cigarettes will be limited to pharmacies and minimum quality standards will be accepted.
Australia already has a requirement that one present a medical certificate to use e-cigarettes, but the sector is poorly regulated due to a flourishing black market.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the products had helped create a new generation of smokers in Australia.
The idea of electronic cigarettes depends on heating a liquid, usually containing nicotine, and turning it into a vapor that smokers inhale, and is considered a substance that helps smokers quit smoking.
However, e-cigarettes have become widespread as a recreational product in Australia, particularly among urban youth.
“Like smoking… ‘Big Tobacco’ has embraced another addiction, with attractive packaging and sweet flavors creating a new generation of nicotine addicts,” Butler said in a speech announcing the reforms on Tuesday.
“We were deceived,” he added.
Electronic cigarettes are safer compared to regular cigarettes because they do not contain harmful tobacco, so the British government offers them free to some smokers under the “Exchange to Quit (Smoking)” scheme.
However, health experts say vaping is not without its dangers and often contains chemicals, and the long-term effects of its use are unclear.
The Australian government says vaping is a public health threat and disproportionately affects young people, many of whom are non-smokers.
Research suggests that one in six Australians aged 14 to 17 use e-cigarettes, compared to one in four aged 18 to 24.
“Only one in 70 people my age smokes,” said Butler, 52.
He said the products were deliberately aimed at children and would be readily available in retail stores “along with lollipops and chocolate bars”.
He said e-cigarettes were a “priority behavior issue” in secondary schools, and Australian media reported that some had begun installing vaping detectors in toilets.
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The reforms include a ban on all single-use e-cigarettes
Tightens already strict rules
Australia already has some of the toughest anti-smoking laws in the world, and Butler on Tuesday compared the new reforms aimed at tackling vaping with those used to combat smoking in Australia and reforms in developed countries.
The reforms include a ban on all single-use e-cigarettes and a ban on the importation of overpriced products.
Prescriptions are necessary for vaping products to be legal, and they must be packaged in medicine-like packaging, as well as restrictions on flavors, colors, nicotine concentrations and other ingredients.
“Bubble gum flavors, pinks or e-cigarettes are no longer disguised as text highlighters for kids that can easily be hidden in a pencil case,” Butler said.
However, he said the government would work to make it easier for smokers to obtain a prescription for “legitimate therapeutic use”.
A timetable for implementation will be announced later.
Other countries, such as Singapore and Thailand, have banned vaping, and Australia’s medicines regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, has recommended reform.
The Cancer Council said the changes would “reduce the vaping epidemic and prevent history from repeating itself for a new generation of Australians”.
But some politicians, industry bodies and health experts say Australia should relax its laws.
National Party leader David Littlebrood has previously said New Zealand should follow suit and restrict smoking of nicotine like cigarettes.
Others worried that tighter restrictions would lead to more people turning to the illegal market.
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