Global Courant 2023-05-02 23:41:25
Australia said on Tuesday it will ban recreational vaping and tighten other aspects of e-cigarette laws in the biggest crackdown on the tobacco industry in more than a decade to try to halt an alarming rise in teen vaping.
The government is aiming to ban all disposable vapes, which often come in fruity flavors, ban the import of over-the-counter vapes, and limit nicotine content, with the aim of limiting vape sales to helping smokers quit.
“Just like they did with smoking, Big Tobacco has taken another addictive product, packaged it in shiny packaging and added flavors to create a new generation of nicotine addicts,” Health Secretary Mark Butler said in a speech at the National Press Club. in Canberra.
Widely seen as a safer alternative to cigarette smoking and useful in helping smokers quit, vaping involves heating a liquid containing nicotine in a so-called e-cigarette and converting it into a vapor that users inhale.
But studies have shown the potential of long-term damage from the addictive e-cigarettes.
Under the new rules, vapes will only be sold in pharmacies and require “pharmaceutical” packaging. Disposable vapes popular with young people will also be banned.
While a prescription is required to buy nicotine vapes in Australia, lax border enforcement and a thriving illicit market mean they are readily available in convenience stores and other outlets.
Major vape manufacturer Philip Morris welcomed the crackdown on such stores.
“Nicotine vaping products sold in convenience stores have always been illegal,” a company spokesman said.
“We have been pushing for enforcement against these illegal products for years and hope this will happen now.”
Butler said vaping in Australia has become a recreational product, marketed mainly to teens and young people, who are three times more likely to start smoking.
“This is a product aimed at our children, which is sold alongside lollipops and chocolate bars,” Butler said. “Vaping has now become the number one behavioral problem in high schools. And it’s becoming widespread in elementary schools as well.”
Health Canada is lagging behind with proposed regulations
The news from Down Under comes as doctors and lawyers in Canada are accusing the federal government of “missing in action” in regulating vaping products.
Two years after proposing restrictions on e-cigarette flavors to make the products less attractive to young people, Health Canada has taken little action and the country continues to have one of the highest rates of youth vaping in the world.
Vaping rates among youth doubled between 2016 and 2019, when 20 percent of college students reported using an e-cigarette in the past 30 days, up from 10 percent in 2016-2017, according to the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Survey.
Health Canada has yet to introduce restrictions on flavored vapes, despite proposals made in 2021. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)
The Canadian 2021 Tobacco and Nicotine Survey revealed that 13 percent of teens ages 15 to 19 said they’ve vaped at least once in the past month, compared to just four percent of adults age 25 or older.
Health Canada told CBC News in a recent statement that it is still assessing feedback from its public consultations on regulating flavored vapes, which “attracted significant attention” — and ended in September 2021.
In the absence of federal regulation, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and Quebec have all banned the sale of most flavors of e-cigarettes.
Health Canada has created new regulations about the permitted amount of nicotine in e-cigarettes, with a maximum nicotine concentration of 20 milligrams per milliliter from July 2021.
‘The same visual language as breakfast cereals for children’
In Australia, doctors supported the move towards vaping, but urged the government to do more to limit the number of young people taking up vaping.
“Nicotine vaping products are sold with colorful flavors and we’ve even seen products with similar images to children’s cereals, including cartoon characters,” said Nicole Higgins, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
About 22 percent of Australians aged 18 to 24 have used an e-cigarette or vaping device at least once, data from last year showed.
The federal budget, due next week, will include $234 million ($213 million Cdn) for measures to protect against the harm caused by tobacco and vaping.
Australia has one of the strictest anti-smoking laws in the world.
In 2012, it became the first country to force cigarette manufacturers to forego clear, colorful branding and sell their products in uniform, boring packs.
Tobacco companies quickly switched to e-cigarettes with different flavors and created designs aimed at a new generation of users.
Butler said the government had no plans to follow neighboring New Zealand in banning cigarette sales for future generations, but said tobacco taxes would be raised by five per cent a year for the next three years to curb sales.
Some countries have tried to restrict vaping and others see it as a good way to kick smokers.
Britain said in April that up to a million smokers would be encouraged to swap cigarettes for vapes, in what was a world first, by offering financial incentives to pregnant women and providing e-cigarette starter packs to help them quit smoking .
