"Hundreds of thousands of vejpers will start smoking again"
Australia is temporarily banning all private imports of nicotine-containing e-liquid. This follows a government decision at the end of last week. The country's 250,000 1TP8 users must now collect their prescription nicotine from a pharmacy.
Unlike regular cigarettes the sale of e-juice containing nicotine has long been banned in Australia. However, nicotine-free e-juice can be sold in vejp shops and individual users have been able to order nicotine for personal use online. The prerequisite has been a prescription from a licensed doctor.
But now the government is tightening the rules. A temporary law may only some pharmacies import nicotine for e-cigarettes. And they can only do so after a doctor has placed the order for a patient. The law will be in force for one year. And, according to the Ministry of Health, the government will gather research during the year on the possible health risks, but also benefits of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation. The aim is to build a permanent legislation, writes the Australian medical journal NewsGP.
E-cigs an approved method according to doctors
The decision comes just a few months after Australian Medical Association has endorsed e-cigarettes as an option for smoking cessation. According to the Society, doctors can prescribe nicotine to smoking patients who are motivated to quit. However, this is subject to the patient trying other methods first.
"We've had this process for a long time now in Australia. It's a bit of a hassle, but relatively easy to get prescriptions and order nicotine from for example New Zealand. But it's going away now. It's the absolute worst thing that could happen," says vlogger Sam Parsons, better known as Vaping Bogan, in a post on YouTube.
A death sentence for smokers
According to the non-profit organization Athra, Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association However, the new law is devastating for vejp users, but especially for smokers trying to give up cigarettes.
"The tightening of the law will be a death sentence for hundreds of thousands of smokers and vejpers in Australia. It is immoral to deny and make it harder for smokers to find a healthier and cheaper alternative to cigarettes. This is particularly true for low-income earners, where smoking rates are very high" Athra writes on its website.
Risk of heavy fines
According to statistics, smokers today 3 million people in Australia. 21,000 die each year from injuries caused by cigarette smoking.
"You can go into any store and buy a pack of cigarettes. But if you want to buy nicotine in a less harmful form, like in an e-cigarette, you risk a $200,000 fine," says the doctor Joe Kosterich, Chairman of the Athra and active in the debate on vejpning in Australia.
"There is no logic behind the government's actions here. It's more about a strong ideology that is spreading among public health scientists: that e-cigarettes are just about the tobacco companies wanting people to keep smoking," says Joe Kosterich.
What was happening in Sweden
A similar approach is taken by several anti-smoking organizations around the world. And many actively oppose tobacco companies' influence over the regulation of new nicotine products, instead advocating for products from pharmaceutical companies, controlled by the Medicines Act. The issue has also been discussed in Sweden, where the Swedish Medicines Agency wanted to regulate nicotine-containing e-juice as a medicine as recently as 2015, in the same way as in Australia. However, this did not happen, following a ruling in the Supreme Administrative Court.
Threatening traditional methods
But the discussion about the harmfulness of nicotine is not the problem, says the doctor Joe Kosterich. If nicotine had been considered proven harmful, products such as nicotine patches and nicotine gum would not have been on the market, he says.
"E-cigarettes were not invented by the pharmaceutical or tobacco industries. They were invented and developed by smokers who wanted to reduce the damage of their nicotine addiction. And it works." says Joe Kosterich.
However, it turned traditional tobacco control on its head. According to the old school, total abstinence from nicotine is key in the fight against smoking. "De-normalization" is another important tool for those working on smoking cessation. Weaning doesn't work like that, says Joe Kosterich. It is not about de-normalizing a behavior but about making it less harmful.
"The independent science tells us that e-cigarettes reduce the harm caused by smoking. Smoking kills and the best thing would be if we all breathed clean air. But we do not live in a perfect world. And if we can have methadone programs to reduce the harm of heroin abuse, why can't we have e-cigarettes to reduce the harm of smoking?" says Joe Kosterich to 3AW Mornings radio channel
Politicians protest against the ban
The Australian import ban starts on July 1 and also applies to tourists (those without a doctor's certificate). At the moment a campaign to overturn the decision.
"I am totally against this decision. It will force vejp users to start smoking again. Or it will open up a huge black market for nicotine" says the MEP George Christensen in The Guardian.
He is joined by another MEP, liberal James Paterson:
"Vaping is a safer alternative than smoking. We should make it easier for smokers to quit, not harder" he tells The Guardian.
