On discussing the news with Australian tobacco harm reduction expert Dr. Colin Mendelsohn, Vaping Post was told that in fact there seems to be some momentum building as the Greens Tasmania also recently voiced their support of vaping, as did the Nationals, one of the current opposition parties.
Australia’s top regulator admits that current regulations are a failure
In fact, Nationals leader David Littleproud has recently said that despite existing measures, vaping in schools is on the increase and clearly former health minister Greg Hunt’s prescription model has failed. Interestingly, the TGA has also recently admitted that the current tobacco control plan in place is not working.
To this effect the Nationals are in support of a new regulatory regime which would relax current vape laws and make the products more accessible to adult smokers wishing to use them to quit. The irony in Australia, is that vapes are less accessible than their deadly counterparts, so the least the government could do is make them as accessible as traditional cigarettes.
Littleproud said that they are facing opposition by several health experts on this, however he added, they will be advocating for the policy again. “We’ve got to protect children, we’ve got to protect them quickly and look at the regulatory models that have worked and be big enough to admit when we’ve got it wrong,” he said, clearly underlining the fact that besides adult smokers, the restrictions are also failing minors.
Prohibition has always failed
Meanwhile experts keep highlighting that prohibition does not work, and countless studies have confirmed this. In fact across the ocean in California, tobacco harm reduction advocates are highlighting that a vape flavour ban proposed for the state would never work.
Discussing this proposal in a recent article on The Sun, William F. Shughart II, a J. Fish Smith Professor in Public Choice at Utah State University’s Huntsman School of Business and Josh T. Smith a research manager at the Center for Growth and Opportunity at Utah State University, have reiterated that the ban will just push Californians back towards unflavored tobacco products, namely cigarettes.
