Australia to ban recreational vaping in e-cigarette crackdown

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SYDNEY — Australia banned leisure vaping and tightened different facets of e-cigarette legal guidelines on Tuesday within the largest crackdown on the tobacco business in additional than a decade to attempt to cease an alarming rise in teenage vaping.

The federal government goals to ban all disposable vapes, which regularly is available in fruity flavors, ban the import of non-prescription vapes and restrict nicotine ranges, aiming for the sale of vapes to be confined to serving to people who smoke stop.

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“Identical to they did with smoking, Large Tobacco has taken one other addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging and added flavors to create a brand new era of nicotine addicts,” Well being Minister Mark Butler mentioned in a speech on the Nationwide Press Membership.

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Underneath the brand new guidelines, vapes might be offered solely in pharmacies and require “pharmaceutical-type” packaging.

Vaping, extensively seen as a safer various to smoking cigarettes and helpful for serving to people who smoke stop, includes heating a liquid that accommodates nicotine in what is named an e-cigarette and turning it right into a vapor that customers inhale.

However research have proven the potential of long-term hurt from the addictive e-cigarettes.

Butler mentioned vaping had turn out to be a leisure product in Australia, largely offered to youngsters and younger folks, who’re thrice as prone to take up smoking.

“This can be a product focused at our youngsters, offered alongside lollies and chocolate bars,” Butler mentioned. “Vaping has now turn out to be the primary behavioral concern in excessive colleges. And it’s turning into widespread in major colleges as properly.”

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Medical doctors backed the vaping crackdown however urged the federal government to do extra to restrict the variety of younger folks taking it up.

“Nicotine vaping merchandise are being offered that includes colourful flavors and we’ve even seen merchandise that includes the identical kind of images as kids’s breakfast cereal together with cartoon characters,” mentioned Nicole Higgins, president of the Royal Australian Faculty of Common Practitioners.

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About 22% of Australians aged 18-24 have used an e-cigarette or vaping machine not less than as soon as, knowledge final yr confirmed.

Although a prescription is required to purchase nicotine vapes in Australia, a thriving unlawful market means they’re available.

The federal funds, due out subsequent week, will embody A$234 million ($155 million) for measures to guard in opposition to the hurt attributable to tobacco and vaping.

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Australia has one of many hardest anti-smoking legal guidelines on the planet.

In 2012, it turned the primary nation to power cigarette producers to desert distinct, colourful branding and promote their merchandise in uniformly drab packets.

Tobacco companies have been fast to modify to e-cigarettes that provide totally different flavors and created designs concentrating on a brand new era of customers.

Butler mentioned the federal government had no plan to comply with neighboring New Zealand in banning cigarette gross sales for future generations however mentioned the tax on tobacco could be raised by 5% a yr over the subsequent three years in a bid to curb gross sales.

Some international locations have tried to limit vaping and a few see it as a great way to get people who smoke to kick the behavior.

Britain mentioned in April as much as a million people who smoke could be inspired to swap cigarettes for vapes, in what was a world first, providing monetary incentives for pregnant ladies and offering e-cigarette starter kits to assist. ($1 = 1.5088 Australian {dollars})

(Reporting by Renju Jose in Sydney; Modifying by Sonali Paul, Robert Birsel)