Nicotine vapes might be on sale to adults at supermarkets throughout the nation beneath a Nationals plan to “protect children” that’s been slammed by consultants as “dangerous”.
Claiming present legal guidelines will not be working, the Nationals need to align the sale of e-cigarettes with cigarettes at licensed retailers the place they’re offered from behind the counter.
But the push has raised new questions in regards to the Nationals embrace of political donations from tobacco firms and the techniques getting used to push for a leisure of vaping legal guidelines.
As it stands, the legislation makes it unlawful to promote, provide or possess an e-cigarette containing nicotine and not using a physician’s prescription in Australia.
But these legal guidelines have performed little to cease vapes changing into broadly out there on-line and in vape shops with an explosion of use amongst youngsters and kids attracted by sugary flavours.
Nationals chief David Littleproud claims reforms launched beneath the Morrison authorities that he served as Deputy Prime Minister — to require a script for nicotine vapes — “haven’t worked”.
“In fact, it has exposed children to this increasing black market of vapes,” he mentioned.
Instead, he needs the Albanese authorities to drop the requirement that people who smoke go to a physician to get a script for nicotine-based e-cigarettes and easily permit them to be purchased and offered to adults on the nook retailer.
“These things are on every street corner,” he mentioned.
“And what we need to do is to be able to tighten them up to streamline the regulation with the ones we’ve got, particularly when they’re aligned to cigarettes, and make sure that we make the policing easier for our state and federal agencies to crack down on.
“And we look to look at the flavours that are offered, the packaging and even making sure that we don’t get carried away with the excise and that excise we can put into regional health and making sure that we invest that back into regional health programs.
“At the moment we’ve got an epidemic out there where young children are getting on these things.”
Big Tobacco, large donations
But the Nationals’ enthusiastic assist for the sale of nicotine vapes is refocusing consideration on the truth that the junior Coalition accomplice nonetheless takes donations from tobacco firms.
The AEC Transparency Register exhibits that since 2017, Philip Morris has contributed $245,562 to the National Party of Australia.
British American Tobacco can be a phrase chief within the vaping market.
But the Nationals chief advised news.com.au he had no situation with taking cash from large tobacco firms.
“Because it’s a legal product,” Mr Littleproud mentioned.
“We actually, we believe in self responsibility. And you take responsibility for your own actions. I mean, [Health Minister] Mark Butler is out there now. saying that we were actually compromised by this. Well, I could run the ruler down the corporate donors to Labor and actually go well, any decision they make or policy decision they make is compromised.
“That’s a puerile political discussion.
“It’s a legal product. We’ve taken money from the telcos, from the banks from even if you want to see my comments on wagering companies, they donate to the Nationals as well.”
Last yr, the tobacco firm donated $55,000 to the Nationals and $55,000 to the Liberal Democrats, a gaggle that has persistently championed vaping as “the safer alternative to smoking”.
Health consultants shoot down plan
Public Health Association of Australia chief govt, Adjunct Professor Terry Slevin, slammed the Nationals’ vaping plan.
“It is dangerous and is guaranteed to commit today’s children and future generations of Australians to lifelong nicotine addiction,” he mentioned.
“Tobacco is one of the most available consumer products in the market. It is available in supermarkets, convenience stores, petrol stations, bars, pubs, clubs, and more. This is exactly the model that will make the vaping problem worse, so it is the opposite of the solution we need.
“By being the only major political party in Australia that takes tobacco industry money – at least $276,062 between 2015-16 and 2021-22 from Philip Morris Ltd – the Nationals have ensured its views on this issue are worse than irrelevant.”
Professor Emily Banks, a public well being skilled who works on the Australian National University, mentioned the position of tobacco firms in pushing vapes was well-established.
“The World Health Organisation has a list of all the different tactics that the tobacco industry uses to further their own interests,” she advised news.com.au.
“And so those do include the things that we are seeing with this e-cigarette lobbying. So for example, their campaign of you know, Responsible Vaping Australia, is actually funded by British American Tobacco. E-cigarette money was used to set up the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association.”
The Cancer Council of Australia declined to touch upon the Nationals assist of vape reform or the looming inquiry into the regulation of e-cigarettes.
Vaping report imminent
Mr Butler is ready to launch new reforms in coming weeks to crackdown on vaping.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear just how big a public health menace vaping is in this country to the general community, but particularly to our children and adolescents,” he mentioned.
“These products are often directly marketed not just to adolescents, but to very young children – they might have pink unicorns on them, they’re bubblegum flavoured.
“I was told of a story by a parent earlier this week of discovering a vape in their child’s pencil case that was made to look like a highlighter pen so they could take it to school. I mean, this is cynical, this is shameless, and this is posing a deep threat to our children and adolescents.”
Originally revealed as Plan to promote vapes at supermarkets slammed as ‘dangerous’
Source: www.dailytelegraph.com.au
