Federal reforms will see all vapes, apart from those for smoking cessation, banned for import by March next year, garnering widespread support from medical organisations.
The importation of disposable, single-use vapes, with or without nicotine, will be banned from 1 January 2024, the federal government has announced.
Following the first step of the reforms – banning the import of single-use, disposable vapes – the import of all vapes apart from those meeting TGA standards for prescription vapes will be banned from 1 March.
Patients will be able to receive prescriptions for vapes for smoking cessation from all medical and nurse practitioners through the Special Access Scheme (SAS C), and fill scripts at pharmacies.
Speaking from Parliament House today Health Minister Mark Butler said “vaping was sold to governments as a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit.”
“It was not sold as a recreational product, especially not one targeted to our kids, but that is what it has become.”
In response to the announcement, AMA president Professor Steve Robson said the association had long advocated for “stronger, strictly-enforced regulation of vapes” and hoped the phased reforms would stem addiction in new generations.
“Younger people and children are increasingly becoming addicted to vaping because vapes are easily accessible and many that are marketed as nicotine free, in fact contain nicotine,” said Professor Robson.
Mr Butler noted that the number of young smokers was growing for the first time in decades, with vaping acting as a gateway to cigarettes for some smokers.
“We’ve seen stories over the course of the high school exam season of students having to wear nicotine patches to get through a two- or three-hour exam, such is their level of nicotine addiction,” said Mr Butler.
The AMA also welcomed the new process for accessing vapes for smoking cessation.
“While the evidence for vaping as a quit smoking tool is limited, the AMA also welcomes the introduction of the new Special Access Scheme pathway to prescribe vapes, which will facilitate improved access for Australians when there is a clinically appropriate need,” he said.
Australia’s peak body for public health, Public Health Association of Australia, also welcomed the announcement.
“If some smokers find e-cigarettes helpful to quit smoking, that pathway will still be open,” said Public Health Association of Australia CEO Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin.
“But instead of being self-regulated, it will be under medical supervision where there’s a much higher chance of success.”
As part of the March tranche of the reforms, Australians will be blocked from personal importation of therapeutic vapes from overseas and therapeutic importers and manufacturers will be faced with strict TGA standards that they must demonstrate they comply with for import.
Importers will also need to obtain an importer’s permit and licence from the Australian Government’s Office of Drug Control.
Mr Butler added that the government will also introduce new legislation to ban the supply of all vapes that do not meet TGA standards – including plain packaging, no flavouring, and prescribed levels of nicotine – from sale, advertisement and local manufacturing in early 2024.
Enforcement will receive a funding injection of $25 million to the Border Force and almost $60 million to the TGA over two years to enact the new reforms.
Mr Butler added that the reforms were aimed at retailers, not individuals.
“The laws focus on vendors, not on people, not on customers, certainly not on kids, and that’s what we want to see enforced,” he said.
The changes should be signed off by the executive council in December, added Mr Butler.
Any disallowance motion cannot be raised until February 2024 when the House of Representative reconvenes after the summer.
Professor Robson said he was encouraged to see decisive action from all levels of parliament and encouraged all MPs and senators to rally behind the reforms.
“To do otherwise would be shameful.”
While he hoped the reforms would curb the rise of vaping in children, Mr Butler said there were sure to be holes in the net.
“Like all other illegal drugs, there will no doubt be some vapes that get into the country but they will no longer be easy for school children, our most vulnerable and impressionable members of society, to get their hands on,” he said.
“Given all that we know about the distress and the death and the cost that cigarettes have reaped over decades and decades, there is no way this government is going to raise the white flag on the future of our youngest Australians.”
PHAA’s Professor Slavin concurred, adding that “street-corner nicotine vendors selling brightly coloured pina colada, gummy bear, or blueberry flavoured products, which contain ingredients never designed to be inhaled into human lungs, will have to find their profits elsewhere”.
“The government’s proposed actions are good news for parents and carers of young people who vape, and bad news for the vaping and nicotine industry desperate to find younger customers they can hook for life.”
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