Australia to ban recreational vaping in e-cigarette crackdown

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 stop an alarming rise in teenage vaping.

The government aims to ban all disposable vapes, which often come in fruity flavours, ban the import of non-prescription vapes and limit nicotine levels, aiming for the sale of vapes to be confined to helping smokers quit.

"Just like they did with smoking, Big Tobacco has taken another addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging and added flavours to create a new generation of nicotine addicts," Health Minister Mark Butler said in a speech at the National Press Club in Canberra.

Vaping, widely seen as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes and useful for helping smokers quit, involves heating a liquid that contains nicotine in what is called an e-cigarette and turning it into a vapour that users inhale.

But studies have shown the potential of long-term harm from the addictive e-cigarettes.

Under the new rules, vapes will be sold only in pharmacies and require "pharmaceutical-type" packaging. Disposable vapes popular with young people will also be banned.

Though a prescription is needed to buy nicotine vapes in Australia, lax border enforcement and a thriving illegal market mean they are readily available in convenience stores and other outlets.

Major vape manufacturer Philip Morris welcomed the crackdown on such shops.

"Nicotine vaping products sold in corner stores have always been illegal," a spokesperson for the company said.

"We have been urging enforcement against these illegal products for several years and hope this will now happen."

Butler said vaping had become a recreational product in Australia, mostly sold to teenagers and young people, who are three times as likely to take up smoking.

"This is a product targeted at our kids, sold alongside lollies and chocolate bars," Butler said. "Vaping has now become the number one behavioural issue in high schools. And it's becoming widespread in primary schools as well."

Health Canada lagging on proposed regulations

The news from Down Under comes as doctors and advocates in Canada are accusing the federal government of being "missing in action" on regulation of vaping products.

Two years after proposing restrictions on e-cigarette flavours to make the products less appealing to young people, Health Canada has taken little action and the country still has some of the highest rates of youth vaping in the world.

Youth vaping rates doubled between 2016 and 2019, when 20 per cent of students reported using an e-cigarette in the past 30 days, up from 10 per cent in 2016-17, according to the Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey.

The 2021 Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey revealed that 13 per cent of teenagers aged 15 to 19 said they vaped at least once in the past month, compared with just four per cent of adults aged 25 or older.

Health Canada told CBC News in a recent statement that it is still reviewing feedback from its public consultations on regulating flavoured vapes, which "attracted considerable attention" — and ended in September 2021.

In the absence of federal regulations, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Quebec have all banned the sale of most e-cigarette flavours.

Health Canada did create new regulations on the amount of nicotine allowed in e-cigarettes, setting a maximum nicotine concentration of 20 milligrams per millilitre as of July 2021. 

'The same type of imagery as children's breakfast cereal'

In Australia, doctors backed the vaping crackdown but urged the government to do more to limit the number of young people taking it up.

"Nicotine vaping products are being sold featuring colourful flavours and we have even seen products featuring the same type of imagery as children's breakfast cereal, including cartoon characters," said Nicole Higgins, president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

About 22 per cent of Australians aged 18 to 24 have used an e-cigarette or vaping device at least once, data last year showed.

The federal budget, due out 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 toughest anti-smoking laws in the world.

In 2012, it became the first country to force cigarette producers to abandon distinct, colourful branding and sell their products in uniformly drab packets.

Tobacco firms were quick to switch to e-cigarettes that offer different flavours and created designs targeting a new generation of users.

Butler said the government had no plan to follow neighbouring New Zealand in banning cigarette sales for future generations but said the tax on tobacco would be raised by five per cent a year over the next three years in a bid to curb sales. 

Some countries have tried to restrict vaping and some see it as a good way to get smokers to kick the habit.

Britain said in April that up to one million smokers would be encouraged to swap cigarettes for vapes, in what was a world-first, offering financial incentives for pregnant women and providing e-cigarette starter kits to help them quit cigarettes.