A blanket ban on the importation of disposable vapes from January 1 has been announced by the Australian government, sparking concerns it could further fuel the dangerously unregulated black market.
The crackdown on vapes has been slowly building since 2020, with nicotine vapes already banned unless medically prescribed, which has led to unauthorised sellers flooding the country with millions of the items.
The products are sold online and in some vapes shops or convenience stores ‘under-the-counter’ while other sellers skirt the prohibition in novel ways, with one photo displaying a ‘vape shop’ inside a blinged-out Uber car.
The new ban, effective from next year, goes further by outlawing the importation of all disposable vapes whether they are labelled as containing nicotine or not.
The government will also introduce legislation to prevent domestic manufacture, advertisement, supply and commercial possession of non-therapeutic and disposable single-use vapes.
The government will ban the importation all disposable vapes from next year sparking concerns it will fuel the black market with demand high and resources to enforce the prohibition stretched (pictured: a ‘vape shop’ inside a Telsa Uber)
Under the new rules, vapes will still be able to be obtained via licensed retailers using a prescription from a medical or nursing practitioner as a smoking cessation tool.
The government will be allocating an additional $25million to the Australian Border Force and $56.9million to the Therapeutic Goods Administration over the next two years to help enforce the ban.
Further changes will apply later in the year, including a ban on importing all non-therapeutic vapes, people importing their own vaping products, and restricting the available flavours, packaging, and advertising.
The law also includes penalties of up to two jail for those who break the ban on importing vapes.
‘Vaping was sold to governments and communities around the world as a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit,’ Health Minister Mark Butler said.
‘It was not sold as a recreational product, especially not one targeted to our kids, but that is what it has become. The great majority of vapes contain nicotine, and children are becoming addicted.’
The Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, headed by vaping advocate Brian Marlow recently took out billboards in the ACT and Queensland which show a picture of the Prime Minister with the caption: ‘Under Albo’s vape ban you could be jailed for two years’.
University of Sydney tobacco control expert Professor Becky Freeman told The Guardian the billboards make it seem like the government is targeting individuals who buy vapes online from overseas for personal use, when that isn’t the case.
‘The new vaping laws are about holding the vaping manufacturing and retailing industry accountable for addicting Australian teenagers to cheap, flavoured and dangerous products,’ she said.
The Albanese government will introduce a range of measures next year in an attempt to make Australia the first country in the world where vapes are limited to therapeutic stop-smoking tools available on prescription
But Mr Marlow claims Mr Butler’s actions have ‘single-handedly’ created ‘the largest black market in the history of Australia’.
Health authorities have routinely called for better regulation, with NSW Health this month linking a fatal overdose to black-market vape juice refills containing an unlabeled opioid of the nitazene class.
According to the World Health Organisation, nitazenes were discovered by Swiss chemists in the 1950s but were never approved for medical use due to their extreme potency.
Mr Marlow claimed more than 100 million illegal unregulated vape products with no ingredient standards had been smuggled into the country from China and sold on the black market.
‘For the Albanese government to think they can fix this crisis with a recreational vaping ban on adults and doubling down on the failed prescription-only prohibition model is completely out of touch with reality and community expectations,’ Mr Marlow said.
‘China is preying on Mark Butler’s weakness by using tactics that can only be described as a reverse opium war.’
Mr Marlow claimed there were similar outcomes in Australia to how the US failed with their prohibition on alcohol – an ‘out-of-control black market run by criminals selling dangerous unregulated products to whoever will buy them’.
The Therapeutic Goods Administration – which oversees the approval of prescription drugs and medicines – pitched the near complete ban in an official consultation paper earlier this year that largely went under the radar (pictured)
‘China regulates their own domestic vaping industry in the same way as they do for alcohol and tobacco; however, the country lets its manufacturers put whatever they want into the unregulated vapes that are destined to be sold illegally in Australia,’ Mr Marlow said.
‘It is not a coincidence Australia has this out-of-control black market and is the only country in the world to restrict access to nicotine vapes on a prescription-only basis.’
In October alone more than 400,000 individual vaping products – or 30 tonnes -were seized in a joint campaign between the ABF and the Therapeutic Goods Administration to target air cargo and international mail imports into Australia.
About 376,000 items, or 92 per cent of the seized goods, were illegal and at least 68 per cent were disposable vapes from brands that previously failed to meet minimum safety and quality standards.
The haul had an estimated street value of $11 million.
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