All flavoured vapes will now be banned in Australia and only sold in one place – with strict new laws set to be announced as Health Minister who vows to ‘stamp out the public health menace’ after regulators were ‘tricked’
- Health minister flags vape shake-up
- Sale to be restricted to pharmacies
- Colours and flavours to be banned
Health Minister Mark Butler is set to restrict the sale of vapes to pharmacies and ban them being marketed in colours and flavours, which he says are a ‘deliberate targeting; of young people.
Mr Butler flagged the moves, which will be officially announced tomorrow, while appearing on ABC panel show QandA.
‘I am determined to stamp out this public health menace because that’s what I think it genuinely is,’ Mr Butler.
‘They should only be available in therapeutic settings, which is essentially pharmacies.
‘Only products that are pharmaceutical style plain package, plain products, they don’t have flavours only those products should come into Australia.’
Currently vapes are available from many convenience stores and tobacco outlets as well as from online sources and come in a bewildering variety of shapes and designs.
Mr Butler was responding to a question by 20-year-old trainee nurse Sigrid, an audience member who asked what the government was doing to combat the popularity of e-cigarettes among young people.
Health Minister Mark Butler has flagged that the sale of vapes will be restricted to pharmacies and they will only come in plain packaging with flavours banned
The minister said e-cigarettes, more commonly known as vapes, were initially sold to governments as a therapeutic aid for people to quit smoking.
‘It was not sold as a recreational product targeted at our kids but that’s what it has become,’ he said.
‘Vapes are disguised as highlighter pens, as USB sticks so that people can take them to school and it is having a significant health effect on our youngest Australians.’
He accused vape-makers of marketing to children by decorating vapes with pink unicorns or giving them bubblegum flavours.
‘This is a deliberate strategy by the tobacco industry to create a new generation of nicotine addicts and far from being a pathway out of cigarettes, which is what it was promoted to us as, it has become a pathway into cigarettes for young people,’ he said.
Vapes are currently sold in a bewildering assortment of colours and flavours, which Mr Butler believes target children
The use of vapes among young people has become a major concern for health authorites
MORE TO COME
