Timeline:
29 November 2024:
"Last month, Tasmania's vaping laws changed, and they now go further than federal vaping laws. The Tasmanian government says the laws passed here were watered down and didn't go far enough to protect children and young people from the harms of vaping. But what about the adult Tasmanians who are now unable to access therapeutic vapes to help them give up smoking? I don't believe in flat-out bans, and I've spoken about that a lot.
Forcing people who use vapes to beat their nicotine addiction to now jump through extra hoops is backwards, and it's dangerous. It pushes people to the black market or back to legal sources of nicotine—cigarettes. Under the laws that came in on 1 October, people in Tassie can legally buy e-cigarettes, e-liquid and vaping devices only from pharmacies and only with a prescription from their doctor.
Let me tell you how this is working in my household. Tim, my partner, was using vapes to quit smoking. His doctor has refused to issue Tim with a script for a nicotine vape and will only give him a non-nicotine script. Tim is addicted to nicotine. He was using vapes to reduce the amount of nicotine in his body, so guess what? Tim's back on the ciggies. He's smoking again, and that's a direct result of these dangerous vaping laws introduced by the state government. Tasmanian pharmacists are not happy about being told they should sell nicotine vapes if a person has a script. I don't blame them. Pharmacists want to help people get well, not supply addictive substances.
The point I really want to make is that these laws are not working the way they are supposed to. Instead of Tim using vapes to quit his nicotine addiction, he's now right back where he started and smoking again. That is some unintended consequence right there."
The Analysis🔎:
The Australian government's approach to vaping has several key flaws, as highlighted by Senator Tyrrell’s statement and supported by extensive research and expert opinions.
What the Australian Government Got Wrong:
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Restrictive Prescription Model Fails Adult Smokers
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Tim’s case exemplifies the failure of the prescription model, as many general practitioners are either unwilling or unable to prescribe nicotine vapes. This leads smokers back to traditional cigarettes, which are significantly more harmfulshing Smokers to the Black Market.
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By restricting legal access, the government has inadvertently fueled an unregulated black market, where products are sold with no quality control and often to minors which is exactly what has happened here in Australia! Organized crime networks capitalized on the ban, increasing the availability of illegal and potentially unsafe products ignoring Harm Reduction Principles.
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Global health bodies, including Public Health England (PHE), the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), and Cancer Research UK, all support vaping as a safer alternative to smoking. The Australian approach fails to balance access for adult smokers while restricting youth uptake, whereas countries like the UK and New Zealand have regulated retail models that achieve both goals.
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The fact that Tim’s doctor refused to prescribe nicotine vapes—despite his need for a safer nicotine alternative demonstrates the practical failure of the law, forcing former smokers back to cigarettes.
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2 The requirement for a prescription-only/pharmacy model has been widely criticized as an ineffective public health measure. Studies and expert reviews indicate that making nicotine vapes available through regulated retail outlets rather than prescriptions/pharmacies would better support smokers trying to quit.
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3 Australia's approach isolates itself from global best practices, prioritizing prohibition over harm reduction. The Tasmanian government’s restrictive vaping laws are counterproductive. By making it harder for smokers to access safer alternatives, they drive people back to smoking or toward unregulated, black market products. A better approach would be a regulated retail model, which has been shown internationally to reduce smoking rates while minimizing youth access.
10 September 2024:
"Smoking is something I'm very familiar with. My dad was a smoker, my sister was a smoker, my uncle was a smoker, my partner was a smoker, and I was a smoker too. You could say that smoking was a bit of a family habit. I gave up my addiction to smoking after having surgery, but others in my family have used vapes to manage their addictions or to give up altogether.
The Tasmanian government has introduced changes around vaping that mean you can only access vapes if you're over 18 and have a prescription from a doctor. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure how many doctors are going to write a prescription for something they think is harmful, addiction or no addiction. And don't even get me started on how requiring adults to have a prescription to access vapes means they will clog up Tasmania's already overstretched doctor waiting lists or how, when they can't get a doctor's appointment, people will turn to other means to access the vapes they need to manage their addiction. It will be harder to access vapes, which will make it harder for people trying to give up smoking. Not only is this ban the harshest in the country but it's harmful and leaves those struggling with addiction with few options, one of those being the black market.
This isn't just a broken promise; it's a public health disaster in the making. Vaping has been a lifeline for many smokers trying to quit. I've already told you about how I've watched family members successfully switch from smoking to vapes and some of them have quit, but I've also spoken with other Tasmanians who have used vaping to quit smoking and have improved their health in the process. Even the federal government acknowledges that vaping can be an acceptable alternative to smoking tobacco. The Therapeutic Goods Authority—TGA—provides guidance to medical professionals looking to prescribe vapes to their patients. The TGA says that 'therapeutic vapes may be a reasonable intervention' if smokers have tried other quitting aids like patches, gum, lozenges, mouth spray or even inhalers.
The Tasmanian government's approach is going to make things tougher for people to quit smoking, and it will negatively impact our already struggling health system. So why would the Tasmanian government make it harder for Tassies to access a harm-reduction approach to give up smoking? Does the Tasmanian government want more people to smoke and fewer people to vape? That doesn't seem like harm reduction to me. Tasmania already has the highest rate of smoking in people aged over 14—a not-so-good statistic we share with the Northern Territory. If we know something will help smokers give up, why wouldn't we make it available to them? Vaping is one of multiple proven methods when it comes to quitting smoking.
Look, I know smoking is bad and I know smoking damages people's health, but I also know my state government should not be telling adults what to do when it comes to managing their nicotine addictions. Restrictions like those the Tasmanian government has introduced guarantee the rise in a black market for vaping products. When a product is pushed underground, the rules that provide safety and quality are stripped away and the products people buy might be even more dangerous than the cigarettes they are trying to give up. This approach puts Tasmanians at greater risk. The state government's stance is dangerous. If the Tasmanian government were truly concerned about people's health, the approach should be to manage and educate through effective regulation, not restrict and punish those who are trying to quit. To put it simply, this approach makes it so much harder for Tasmanians to access safer alternatives to cigarettes.
We're all addicted to something. It might be alcohol, cigarettes or gambling—all of which have been the subject of debates in this place over the years—but what about other addictions that have been normalised? I can't function without coffee, and I like chocolate and KFC too. Do I know too much of these things isn't good for me? Yes, but that doesn't stop me from having them. I'm an adult and I should be able to choose what I put into my body. If I decided to get healthier and stop eating chocolate or drinking coffee, I'd be applauded. Why is it different for those people who choose to use vaping to help them give up smoking? The Tassie government needs to support people who are trying to give up smoking by allowing them to access vapes without jumping through hoops. Banning vapes and pushing them into the black market is not a minor stumble off the kerb; it's taking a big leap off the cliff altogether."
26 March 2024:
I come from a family of heavy smokers—my dad smoked, my uncle, my sister, my brother, and me too. I remember the first smoke I ever had. I was 17 or 18 years old, I was at a party, and everyone else was smoking, so I tried one too. It was bloody awful. I hated it. But the more I drank the more I smoked. Everyone else was doing it, and I didn't want to be the odd one out. Smoking has always been a sliding habit for me. I'd smoke for a bit, then I'd feel bad about my health, so I'd stop. Then the peer group pressure would get to me, and I'd start again. When I met my partner, Tim, he smoked too. Our kids grew up watching us smoke, and, when they became adults, one of them started smoking too.
Smoking is something that has been normalised for generations of my family. It has just always been happening in the background. As a kid, I was rolling smokes for my dad. When you rocked up to a family event, there was always someone in the backyard with a durry. It took a surgery for me to stop smoking for good. I was able to kick the habit. But it's not an easy thing to do. You can't understand addiction if you haven't been there. It eats away at you day after day. You try to cut back to stop. You know you need to for your health. But it's like it's in your veins: you need to smoke more than you need to sleep or breathe; air is an option.
That's why so many heavy smokers are turning to vapes to try and get off the smokes. I've had family members do it. They didn't get a vape through a prescription. Not a lot of doctors are keen to give you something they think is harmful for your health. So this family member got the vape from overseas. It's technically illegal to do that in Australia. But this person was determined to improve their health, and they saw vapes as the best way to do that. And it worked. This person no longer uses any inhaling products. They've quit nicotine for good, and I'm so proud of them. I've seen a lot of people make the transition from cigarettes to vapes. They see it as an achievement, a sign that they're on the way to stopping their addiction once and for all.
Meanwhile, Labor sees vapes as—I quote—'insidious devices'. I'm not saying using a vape is healthy. I'm not saying kids using a vape is okay. But what I am saying is that vapes are a legitimate way for people to try and stop smoking. For whatever reason, Labor doesn't want that. So I'm a bit confused about what they want to do. Banning vapes will only achieve one of two things. The first is that it will push people back onto smokes and push money back into big tobacco. We might be in a cost-of-living crisis, but, if you know a heavy smoker, you know that they will make sure they have money for smokes above anything else. It also continues to put pressure on our public health system. The other option is that the black market thrives. You can get a vape from China for $2 and sell it here in Australia for $30. That means there's no regulation on what's in the vape or the juices, and you don't have any idea of what you're buying. We're actively creating an environment for criminal activity to grow. That's why I back regulation over banning.
We already have rules in place to make sure kids can't buy cigarettes. We make sure they're not packaged in ways that appeal to kids, and we tax them to high heaven. That money goes back into funding our health system. We could have done the same thing with vapes—rules around age requirements, rules around advertising and a healthy tax. That would mean more money to fund essential health care. It would mean that people would have access to vapes if and when they needed them.
My general principle in life is that everyone is addicted to something. Some things are obvious, such as alcohol, cigarettes, drugs and gambling, but there are other things that are much more normalised—addictions to coffee, sugar or fast food, for example. None of these things are good for you, but as adults we have the freedom to make our own choices. That's why I don't agree with banning anything. Vaping won't help everyone stop smoking, but I've seen it work with people I love, and I know there are so many other stories out there just like theirs. It would be hypocritical of me to say that it's good enough for my loved ones but to not allow anyone else to have their choice.