The Australian Government has signaled their intent to ban recreational vaping in the country by requiring all vape sales to run through local pharmacies where Australian vapers will be required to have a valid prescription in order to purchase vaping products. Will the plan work? According to the head of the Australian Border Force (ABF), Commissioner Michael Outram, the new rules won’t stop the flood of vapes from reaching the country’s black market, which has boomed since the government made nicotine vaping products prescription-only in 2021.
Commissioner Outram told a senate estimates hearing that a vape prohibition at the border “is unlikely to solve a problem” by itself. He noted that the Australian Border Force is currently only managing to catch 25% of the illicit drugs that are smuggled into the country.
The Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) has called the prescription-only model a failure. In a statement, AACS chief executive Theo Foukkare said that “Australia’s vaping policy has clearly failed” while pointing to the growth of the black market for vaping products as a direct result of the country’s vaping policy.
Despite a lack of resources allocated to combating black market sales of nicotine vaping products, authorities in the country have not been sitting idly by while vapes are bought and sold illegally. Last year, police in New South Wales seized over AU$1 million worth of illegal vaping products, including nicotine e-liquid and vaping devices.
While the country’s current health minister, Mark Butler, has opted for a prohibitionist approach to vaping products and moved to eliminate recreational vaping with the latest federal ban on non-prescription vapes, industry figures have estimated that a tax on vaping products could generate $300 million in revenue if vaping products fell under the same regulations as cigarettes.
Butler’s recreational ban has not yet been enacted. Online vape shops and local retailers that sell vaping products have been left to guess when the proposal may become law and what enforcement measures will be taken. Will local vape shops that are already prohibited from selling any nicotine-containing vaping products simply go out of business? Will vapers who have used e-cigarettes to quit combustible tobacco products like cigarettes and cigars revert back to smoking or turn to the black market to supply their vapes? With important questions left unanswered, vapers in the country who have yet to acquire an e-cigarette prescription almost certainly can’t help but be anxious in these uncertain times.
