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President’s Blog: What’s the end goal on vaping?
Friday June 28, 2024
Over the school holidays, many people will swap the rain clouds of the Southern Hemisphere for the vape clouds of the North. Vaping is absolutely rife in some countries. On a visit to the United Kingdom last year, my first overseas trip since before 2020, I was stunned at the change in landscape since the pre-vape days. People of just about every age group, vaping on every park bench and street corner, and vaping products available in every second shop.
This is just an observation, not a judgment of those who vape; indeed, Public Health England, a government agency, did the world a disservice back in 2018 when it made a strong statement arguing for the safety of vaping. Its report is still quoted today by pro-vapers, a la Andrew Wakefield’s discredited and retracted research linking vaccines with autism.
Whilst it could be true that vaping is safer than smoking, we don’t know this with certainty in the direct sense, and nor do we know whether vaping provides a more accessible route to smoking or other substance use. What we do know is that it provides no public or individual health benefit and therefore, in the view of many, should be the subject of an outright ban.
In this regard, I find that arguments made by those who oppose vaping often don’t go far enough: they focus on keeping vapes out of the hands of children. Of course, this is important. But if we allow vapes into the hands of anyone, they will find their way into the hands of children, just as cigarettes and alcohol have, since time immemorial, despite legislation intended to prevent this. The ambition to keep vaping out of Australia must therefore be much broader.
So, the new laws going through Federal Parliament this week are welcome. They will ban the sale of vapes other than through pharmacies. The Bill had intended to make vapes prescription-only, but in a last-minute deal with the Greens, the Labor Government agreed that they could be sold without a prescription.
What does this mean? Pharmacies become vape shops? The Pharmacy Guild has vigorously opposed the amendment. As pharmacies push to become “healthcare destinations,” it would be understandable that they would not want to be perceived as tobacconists. (As an aside, perhaps the next stand the Guild could take could be against pharmacies carrying unproven quack remedies?) In any case, the evidence does not yet support the safety and efficacy of vapes as smoking cessation aids. But Big Tobacco which is, after all, behind the vaping industry, will push for its products to be recognised as “therapeutic,” and when they do, turn a blind eye to the vast majority of vapers not using them for this purpose.
This week, I also spoke to Jo Trilling from ABC Radio about changes to legislation on vaping. You can read more in the interview transcript.
