Victoria’s health promotion foundation is urging the federal government to take action and set further vape restrictions in order to prevent teen vaping rates from increasing. VicHealth chief executive Sandro Demaio said that the use of vapes amongst teens has exploded in the past two years.
“The industry has used the pandemic … and uncertainty young people have been facing … to push these products very successfully onto young people,” said Demaio. “My significant concern is that if we don’t act on vaping swiftly and comprehensively to protect young people, not only will we end up with a whole new generation addicted to nicotine, but we may look back and realise these things are far more dangerous than we first understood.”
TGA Head admits current regulations are ineffective
Meanwhile, the Head of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration Associate Professor John Skerrit has recently contradicted himself when he admitted that “the current regime doesn’t seem effective at all” yet refused to take responsibility for it: “we should be proud of what we have done on vaping”.
Questioned at Senate Estimates last month in Canberra, Skerrit made the following points:
- There has been a dramatic increase in youth vaping
- Huge numbers of low-quality products are entering the country and are being sold on the black market and we can’t stop them
- Only 1,353 doctors have applied to be authorised prescribers out of 130,000 registered doctors (1%)
- Less than 10% of adult vapers have a prescription for nicotine
Senator Ross Cadell highlighted that the current vape regulations are a failure.
Western Australia’s Stance on Vaping Will Have Dire Consequences
