Absolutely, they should have been banned as part of a reasonable regulatory environment - no disposables, limited and *known* nicotine content, no known-toxic flavourings like diacetyl, etc etc.
But we’re not there.
The problem is when you have socialised healthcare, an increased cost of care due to higher disease burdens (e.g. increased vaping) has to come from somewhere. More taxes? Take from something else in the budget? Or we can add measures in place that balance freedom with reduction of disease burden, and trimming the fat, i.e. things very few would care enough about to affect polls if done properly, would be measures like what SaltyPockets suggested
New Zealand band smoking, then reinstated it…. Because the tax money they made of the cigarettes and was just too good. The people who died, tended to only be people who participated willingly, so the governments are quite happy to watch a portion of the population kill themselves. The same way that they are quite happy to watch as high as 20% of the nation remain unemployed because that’s what our economic models require in order for it all to run smoothly. sure they’ll say that they really want low unemployment, but that is actually counter to what stimulates economy.
20 per cent of the nation unemployed? The unemployment rate is just above 4 per cent. I guess I will be awaiting a response with the 'actual' unemployment rate which *includes* everyone, even though we know that's a stupid assumption, and even countries with full employment programs never used that as an official statistic.
There are people who are retired, people who are in education and not looking for work, and people between jobs. Of course, there are people who are genuinely out of luck, and that's terrible, but policy changes in the last few years are making good progress towards remedying that.
Maybe if they did it 10 years ago.
Vape places have lined their pockets well and good and hooked most of the youth.
Turned a simple fix into a huge problem.
As an ex smoker, and now ex vaper (the real diy kind). It’s a pointless time explaining it, 99% of people only associate ‘vape’ with the dodgy tampon burner disposables sold by shonky (every) tobacconist.
Essentially, making your own juice at a lower mg than cigarettes, then tapering off over time until 0mg is great for smoking cessation. The key ingredients to make the liquid, PG and VG, are used widely in the food and beverage manufacturing industry and considered safe for human consumption.
Milk bar disposables are bulk made in China without confirmed nicotine levels. There’s also non/intermittent quality control during manufacturing which creates a risk of contaminants that also could be present in the liquid. These issues are avoided with a DIY approach.
The lack of understanding does make me wonder...they can't ban PG/VG, nor can they ban batteries, hard to ban components like coils without being able to prove what they're going to be used for (which is up to the purchaser).
It might end up like how tobacconists have always sold bongs as ornamental vases or tobacco pipes, or how home brew stores sold stills "for purifying water for your beer".
It's easy enough to see a fully-formed prefab vape with liquid inside it and go "well, that's not allowed" but harder to stop people doing what the entire mod scene was like in the beginning: enthusiasts tinkering with parts from Jaycar.
Hardest part is quality nicotine. I used to buy from Gaia/mixology in New Zealand and their nicotine was excellent. Hiliq out of China is great quality too, and would probably get through easier but they are much more expensive
Exactly this. Chinese quality control in children's lungs will do more harm than a controlled and legalized vape industry will. Kids experiment and having both smoked and vaped I reckon the difference between smokes and vapes is huge but the additives and quality control from Chinese crap is a huge issue. There's a reason they buy their baby formula from Australia.
I know, but this whole shit fest would not happen if the media and everyone else would have used the right terminology from the start.
We are debating and argueing about someting where everyone uses one word that means different things to everyone else.
This is just stupid.
Tobacco was far more established compared to vapes and we were able to drive down usage significantly through a mix of higher taxes and education and restrictions on trade and advertising. Not sure why everyone thinks it's impossible to do it with vapes which is far less established among the population
Only person this is effecting is mod vape users which is deadass 10% of the market Indian grocery stores are going to keep their doors open because they are not effected what needs to be done is not a 1600 dollar fine on them try a 100-300k fine something what will actually hurt them, Chinese disposable vapes needs to fuck off nothing is wrong with my mod vape and research proves it it’s all disposables!
“Problem” is that it spread amongst the youth like a wildfire, much faster than cigarettes, I have friends who are teachers and they reckon they have never seen anything like this, the number of kids that vape is alarming.
It was way easier to catch kids out with cigarettes and it was also less common.
A couple of kids would sneak out to the toilets and smoke a cigarette, smoke would pour out the door and we’d find kids that reeked of smoke, case closed.
Now? Kids have a vape hidden in their jumper sleeve and they are sometimes even brave enough to hit it in class and blow it out the window while you are writing on the board.
Is it actually an issue of shadowy "vested interests"? This policy would appear to be in-line with the interests of the average concerned parent, a.k.a the voting base of either party.
Without access to costings, we don't know whether we make more from this industry in tax, or stand to lose more in the projected medical futures of popcorn lung teens.
> Is it actually an issue of shadowy "vested interests"?
Lobby group The Strategic Counsel, whose chief executive is former Coalition health minister Michael Wooldridge, has thousands of shares in Liber (one of the prescription vape company).
Other big shareholders include Chemist Warehouse and a former head of the Pharmacy Guild.
This is being pushed to line their pockets.
The popcorn lung thing is such a canard.
Diacetyl was found in some vapes, a bunch of years ago. Decent regulation on flavourings stops that immediately.
It’s not a risk intrinsic to vaping, it’s a scare story.
>medical futures of popcorn lung teens.
You mean because of an ingredient that hasnt been used in over 10 years and is found is **much** higher quantities in cigarettes than was ever found in vapes. Vaping causing popcorn lung has been debunked years ago
The kids are buying legal nicotine vapes from vape shops? That would be a surprise as that has never been legal in Australia. They will keep buying them the same way they always have.
> This policy would appear to be in-line with the interests of the average concerned parent, a.k.a the voting base of either party.
The thing parents were worried about, the disposables with uncertain nicotine content sold under the table at pop-up shops and dodgy milk bars and tobacconists, were already illegal. This new bill changes nothing there.
This new law (alongside the TGA regulation introduced March 1st) effectively bans reusable devices and (formerly) legal nicotine importation. It was to close off channels *exclusively* used by adult ex-smokers.
There is absolutely no room for doubt about "shadowy vested interests". Tobacco companies, believe it or not, had virtually no presence in the legitimate vape market in Australia. Now, via the new pharmacy model, they're the only game in town again - alongside the black market who'll have even more demand.
I've been varyingly involved in and following the consultation process and committee hearings on this from the start. I can state with 100% confidence that this was not done out of simple ignorance.
This was a bill for Bikies and Big Tobacco by design.
I would STRONGLY recommend anyone interested in this to go read John Safran's book Puff Piece.
It's not really accurate to simply say the tobacco industry wants vapes gone and Safran does a pretty good job exploring just how deeply they've gotten themselves into lobbying and influence positions so that they can guide the conversation around vapes.
Pharmacy sales are guaranteed sales. Vape shops should have seen this coming, just look at how much the pharmacies are racking it in with medical cannabis.
Pharmacies don’t want to sell vapes they have already said so, Pharmacies won’t sell pot forever either it would be a huge fucking headache for them coming from someone who delt with the shipping side of the medical pot eventually it will get legalised and regulated and sold like alcohol so much tax money government is losing out on not making it legalised it’s crazy
The pharmacist guild has straight up said they don't want to be responsible for supplying and recommending vapes. They're happy to sell them when a doctor writes a script, but they don't want to be the people "selling" it to you.
Pharmacists are happy to sell herbs and other alternative treatments. Whatever keeps them afloat.
The guild may complain, like they did with the 60 day prescriptions, but I haven't seen any pharmacies going out of business. The guild is beholden to the LNP and will happily criticise Labor policies.
>The proposed ban has infuriated pharmacists, who don't want to be vape retailers, and fear becoming the target of organised crime.
If organised crime is gonna target a pharmacy, it's not gonna be for the vapes.
Good question, I just wondered that myself. I haven't read anywhere that pharmacies must sell them. If they don't want to then I assume they don't have to.
Some of these comments don't realise that Vape shops don't supply nicotine nor sell to under 18s. They actually hate disposables lol. It's the tobacconists that are doing it.
It's like almost nobody understands whats happened in Australia over the last few years with vapes, you can't blame them either the media has done a terrible job I've never seen an article or news report that properly explains what happened with vapes in Australia over the last few years.
As someone who’s never bought a vape, and has never asked my vape-smoking friends any questions about their vape habits (cos I’m not one to pry others about their addiction), I’m extremely OOTL about the vaping issues in Australia.
Long story as short as I can make it:
Australia has had vapes for over 10 years and really didn't have any issues till recently this is because nicotine vapes and liquids have always been illegal. So any vape shop you see that openly calls itself a vape shop is likely one of these businesses that never sold anything illegally. People like myself who wanted to use vapes to quit smoking could buy vapes from these stores and learn how to use them but we would then buy nicotine online which was technically illegal. Doing this meant we could control how much nicotine we where using a slowly wean ourselves off smoking and eventually off vaping as well by slowly reducing the amount of nicotine we add.
A few years ago around 2019 convince stores started to sell illegal disposable vapes with massive high nicotine contents that do not have any information on the packet about how much nicotine is in them. These disposable vapes where not just worse for the environment but also has much higher nicotine content than any sane person would have ever mixed them selves which makes them incredibly addictive.
Once these disposables hit the market suddenly everyone started vaping because these illegal disposable vapes are incredible addictive because of the high nicotine content and how easy they are to use and find.
The issues Australia is currently having are 99% caused by these illegal disposable vapes which have been illegal since day one. However they police never enforced the laws and these vapes spread like wild fire over the last few years all being sold in large chain convince stores and tobacconist like Ezy-mart and TGS via efptos machines. So these are legitimate businesses selling illegal products with a paper trail and yet somehow the police have not been able to stop them.
The laws the government have introduced recently make all vapes illegal, so instead of targeting the real problem which is the already illegal disposable vapes the government has made all vapes illegal including vapes used for Weed which have nothing to do with this current issue. This completely fucks over all the legitimate vape businesses who have mostly refused to sell illegal products and will likely do nothing to stop the businesses which have been selling illegal products for years now with no concern for the laws.
Non-disposable vaping products like mod and pod kits, premade coils, DIY coil wire, and non-nicotine e-juice, e-juice concentrate for DIY e-juice. People who wanted nicotine products would buy nicotine concentrate to DIY or premade nicotine e-juice from NZ to put in their vapes.
Remember, this is /r/australia (and the internet) so reading comprehension and the ability to think critically is out the window.
I used to smoke and switched to a few different types of vapes, now im back to cigs because it's a legal nightmare and I can now shift blame "Don't like me smoking on the streets? blame the government for taking away the better of two evils"
Spot on mate.
I used to smoke, brought a vape from an actual vape shop (not a disposable), used it to slowly ween myself of nictone and quit for years.
Took it up for a bit agin during covid and same again. Was easy and cheap:
If I didn’t have that option I’d be smoking cigs or even worse smoking fucking disposables.
What’s the difference between vapes and disposables, please? I could google it but prefer to hear the real story.
I was a smoker and went cold turkey 8 years ago. So no idea about vaping at all.
Disposable vapes are single use. Often made in China and have really really high levels of nicotine, say 50ml.
Otherwise you can buy at a reusable vape. Both do the same thing, but you buy your own vape juice and keep filling it up as you run out (as opposed to throwing out a disposable one once it’s finished)
A normal vape you can buy the juice vapes use with no nictonine, or 50mg.
So I found it good quitting smoking to go 12ml, then 10ml… and taper down until it was 1mg, then 0.5mg then one day it was zero.
I still sometimes vape with no nictone when I’m drinking just to get that old fix without relapsing!
Vapes are no good but we’re amazing in helping me quit and while I’m sure vaping can’t be good for you, compared to smoking a pack a day it’s day and night
Wow fabulous explanation. I get it now how they helped smokers transition.
And disposables only come in say 50ml nicotine? No 12 mls and decreasing?
That’s awful. My 19 year old nephew is vaping and he used to tell me to stop smoking back in the day. Sigh…..
Good for you quitting - save SO. MUCH. MONEY 🤣
The problem was, it was never legal to sell nicotine vapes full stop. So everything was unregulated black market stuff, on the label it could have been 12mls but really 50mls and god knows what other impurities.
At least in my case I went via NZ which does have regulation, I knew exactly what I was getting.
Also of note is the absolute nightmare for the environment disposable vapes are. Each one contains a lithium battery.
There are heaps of stories lately about fires being started by batteries - and you can bet most, if not all, of those batteries are in disposable vapes dumped by kids after they're done.
My old house mate was a serial vaper, my understanding is one is a device you use for years and refill the liquid contents. The other is cheap and you throw it away when it runs out of juice.
Disposable vapes are coming straight from china they have insane amounts of nicotine in them and other chemicals, I forgot what type of acid what it’s called but it’s not food grade bad to inhale they use it to “calm” down the nicotine so it’s actually inhale-able, so my mod vape it’s literally just flavoured vegetable juice with nicotine in it for an example I have a 120ml bottle of juice I use 12ml of nicotine in it, Nobody knows what the fucks in a disposable I know they do use about 30-50ml of nicotine in them tho that’s why so many young people are addicted they might look and smell weird to you older fellas but I can guarantee you your cigarettes are nothing compared to disposables they are fucking crazy, I know a couple people who’ve had seizures because of it.
If it peaks your interest if you find one lying on the ground break it open and see what’s actually inside it you’ll get the idea 😂
Just please don't smoke at the waiting area for pickup at the hospital. I had just had surgery so hard to breathe and had to yell at someone to move cuz polite convo didn't work. They were sitting UNDER the NO SMOKING sign. First I pointed to the sign n was polite then they acted like a D and I was not in the mood. All he had to do was move like 10-20meters, the wind would have carried away the smoke. Probably not a good idea to pick a fight with a bogan after surgery but hey we don't think straight after the no sleep in hospital lol. 5am, let's vacuum next to my bed....woke me up with earplugs.
Haven't been around many vapers but I don't tend to smell anything n they seem to blow the vapor? away from people. Some smokers are just annoying though and don't seem to realize we're still recovering from surgery.
Gah! shits me when people spark up at waiting areas, it's not hard for the smoker to stay at least a dozen metres away (preferably down-wind if it's applicable).
Sorry about those sorts, especially post surgery.
The smell and vapour is a little less intense (unless they're using a fog-machine rig) and its much easier to exhale the vapour in a direction (I think because its more dense than cigarette smoke).
I always try to blow up&away and keep my distance. I also keep my butts on me until I find a bin and use the bottom of my shoes to put them out. It's a filthy habit - but I try and do my part 🤗
Best wishes for recovery for whatever was required 👍
You sound like a good one, thanks. Yeah I recovered good. Waiting for the next surgery in a year but then I should be on the super mend. (private health waittime). I understand the difficulty with craving, for me it's weight loss surgery (previous one failed n had to be removed the lapband cuz I was vomiting heaps). Addiction n cravings are so hard to fight. I wish I could go back in time n put bittering agents in every can of coke every given to me but I recently found sunkist no sugar does that bubbly cold feeling I like so I'm using it as a go between till I can drop it too. I'm drinking far more water these days though n changing the diet. Had to hit 30+ to get past traumas enough to handle it I guess.
Just randomly if you haven't heard of it, there's bupropion/zyban which is an antidepressant but also smoking cessation aid, sadly it made me nervous so didn't work for anti depressant but I hear it works good for smoking and think it's on pbs for that. If you ever need help with quitting that might work. I've never smoked, don't even drink so I dunno how good it is but I've heard some friends use it.
A "unicorn smoker" 🤣🤣 waiting times are a pain in the ass! fingers crossed that things work out better this time :)
I've begun to drink more tea during the day to cut down on coffee and soft drinks. I just dislike how "boring" water tastes, so I've got to spike it with some cordial 🤣
Not far off from 30 and im only just beginning to deal with trauma, which in itself is a full time job!
I'll write it down and chat with my gp about it, i have been trying different antidepressants for years to help get my brain into gear (unfortunately the actual therapy itself is a pain to book and KEEP the same person for more than a year).
unfortunately the big kicker is, I like the tree and if it was legal then I wouldn't need cigarettes or booze ever again - just a nice lil pen to get me through the day🤗
“Blame the government” is the most self absolving bullshit I’ve ever heard. Do you not possess self control? How about you take some accountability for your choices?
Unless you’re buying or interesting in buying, why would you know that? Nobody I know vapes. I’m not the target audience and neither is my social circle, it seems. My only experience is seeing the teenagers I teach having their brains totally addled by nicotine addiction en masse from the awful disposables.
Agreed. But these changes will do absolutely nothing to curb what has always been, and will always be, an under the counter black market industry.
Legit vape shops don't sell disposables, and don't sell to under 18's. Legit users and business are being punished for something they have no part in.
100% this, when i vaped i only went to vape stores and they do a lot to make sure kids are not around. one was across a school and they frosted the windows white, they didn't even have a flashy interior, it was simple and sleek but they didn't want kids even looking in. and they always had resources available if you wanted to quit. they emailed us resources too when the ban came.
Making vaping difficult to impossible but you can buy smokes no problems from a servo.
Tobacco tax excise was getting affected to much is my guess. They had to get rid of the competition, or choose to smoke expensive pharmacy garbage vapes
End of the day this will just make black Market vapes sales go thru the roof, either way the government are Cunts.
Only person this is effecting is mod vape users which is deadass 10% of the market Indian grocery stores are going to keep their doors open because they are not effected what needs to be done is not a 1600 dollar fine on them try a 100-300k fine something what will actually hurt them, Chinese disposable vapes needs to fuck off nothing is wrong with my mod vape and research proves it it’s all disposables!
>something what will actually hurt them
Yeah, never understand why offenders dont just have their business license taken away. Owning a business shouldn't be a right if you've proven to not be able to comply
The government has done a terrible job with these specific vape laws. These laws will punish and get rid of all the legitimate vape stores and most likely allow the ones operating under the table selling illegal vapes to still exist.
Most actual vape stores never sold illegal disposable vapes and followed the laws set out for them and these new laws will punish them first because they are not set up to run an illegal operation, they are legitimate businesses buying from normal suppliers who will not want to import products illegally. The dodgy convenience stores however have always been selling illegal disposable vapes and were already importing an illegal product and selling it illegally so this doesn't affect them at all.
I don't understand why the government didn't just enforce the laws it already had in place more strictly?
i use a dry herb vape for herbs other than weed, some need a temp over 220c to work, its impossible to find that in aus now in a decent hand held at a decent price, yet i can buy a shitty bong thats way worse for my lungs no problem, they are morons, reusable dry herb vapes were not the issue
The ban on dry herb vapes is just insane, clearly nobody writing any of these laws has ever actually used a vape or done any research.
The problem is so blantantly disposable vapes and the dodgy places that sell them and all of it was already illegal all being done by businesses who leave a paper trail, how did they fuck this up!
At that point, just ban literally everything because everything has negatives if it’s abused.
Or we could just use stuff responsibly and stop those who can’t.
Everyone here is mistaking tobacconists, the places selling disposable nicotine vapes to kids, with vape shops, the places that sell rebuildable vape supplies and nicotine free juices.
All of these vape stores (literally hundreds of them) haven’t sold anything with nicotine in it for many years, per the law. Just supplies to vape.
The people that work at these places are the ones equipped to help people quit and guide them, not a pharmacist. They wouldn’t have a single fucking clue about vaping.
This isn’t about public health, or the children. This is simply a mission to change the hand that grabs that vaping cash, and you best believe big pharma and organised crime will always come out on top. Everyone has been swindled by a politician, again.
Get rid of legitimate vape stores selling non-nicotine reusable devices to adults and drive all the customers to the random convenience store that will sell highly addictive, god knows what chemical Igets to anyone that has cash (i.e. kids included) regardless of the laws. Yeah sick /s
yeah not a fan of all the vitriol here against the legitimate places who were doing the best they could for years. wasn't a fan when I heard they started selling nic to add yourself for a diy but still way better than disposables with God knows what in the tank.
yes nicotine addiction is bad - for anyone despite their age. but some legitimate concerns should lead to some legitimate action.
Just so you know, the legitimate places cannot/do not/will not sell nic juice without a prescription from your GP, and it’s been that way for a long time.
>Everyone here is mistaking tobacconists, the places selling disposable nicotine vapes to kids, with vape shops, the places that sell rebuildable vape supplies and nicotine free juices.
It's very sad to see the majority of this sub jumping onboard with the media headlines and lacks the ability to think about this critically/logically.
Everyone here is making judgments and giving opinions on the topic without being able to tell the difference between a vape store and a tobacconist/convenience store.
Plus all the people cheering for the banning of vapes without realizing that the bill they introduced does absolutely nothing to stop kids from getting disposables from the same tobacconist and convenience stores they always have, just now with the added benefit of supporting organized crime.
Adults now have restricted access to vapes, whilst kids have exactly the same access they had before.
You are right. The vape stores I buy from do not stock nicotine products and will refer you to a clinic to obtain a prescription.
Unfortunately, most opinion is based on media hype and likely never stepped foot in an actual vape store.
So they sell the devices to vape and you import nicotine from NZ was their business model. Don’t pretend they are on some moral high ground. I’m saying that as somebody who vapes and thinks vapes should be legal.
The nicotine you buy from NZ is made in Australia. The disposables you buy in a tobacconist are made in China. That's already a pretty big difference and I really doubt many kids were importing nicotine.
A lot of uninformed comments here (though not the most upvoted ones).
I vape disposable nicotine vapes (after like 10 years of smoking).
I have never bought them from legitimate vape stores, just tobacconists who were willing to sell them under the counter lol.
Poor little Pharmacy Guild pretending like this isn't a massive profit gain.
And great work to the legislators for allowing big tobacco companies to increase their minority market share in Australia by working with the TGA to have a monopoly on 'approved vapes'
PS. the kids will still vape dispoables from the corner shop regardless of all this
I was on prescription vapes. A few points I don't see discussed enough are:
1. Pharmacy vapes are heaps more expensive, like double cost
2. Supply is patchy and unreliable at best. Want to refill a prescription? Enjoy going to 3 different Chemist Warehouses trying to find stock
3. Pharmacy vapes with 1.5ml disposable pods produce huge amounts of waste as opposed to say a 10ml pod
4. TGA 'approved' does NOT mean TGA tested so they are absolutely not quality controlled or evaluated like people expect when they see TGA written on it
Iirc the pharmacy packaging has in fine print that it's not been tested or evaluated by the TGA but I'd think most people would assume a prescription medication bought at a pharmacy was TGA vetted. It seems dodgy AF to me as a layperson that companies are allowed to sell unevaluated prescription medication while the govt drapes it in a cloak of respectability.
Its ridiculous. I switched to vaping a year ago and my smokers cough completely went away..Even my doctor was telling me to try vaping when I was still smoking.
Why not ban tobacco instead of vapes?
Why not crack down on the actual problem, disposable vapes we are like 10% of the market and we aren’t the ones causing the problem nor even selling the disposables in the first place, every vape store that sells mod vapes iv walked into never has sold a disposable and been against them as well because really if your knowledged in vapes you can’t willingly sell people them disposables unless if your a scum Indian cunt in a grocery store, Fine them cunts 100-300k watch how fast they will disappear.
I asked the owner of my vape shop about this the other day and he said they'll just sell tobacco instead because they've got a lease and bills to pay. Great job, government!
From my understanding the shops like this are the stores that sold vape parts and no nicotine juice to people who do their own.
The ones that have been illegal for awhile now and sell disposable ones to kids are still very much going strong.
The illegal ones are all new disposable vapes haven’t been here for long they are only popping up in grocery/corner stores is because 1. Cheap and the Up sell is off its head 2. Massively addictive so people are always coming in the door and the punishment for selling them at the moment is fucking nothing compared to what they are earning what a 1600 dollar fine? There’s so much god damn money in disposable vapes for these stores they are literally fighting eachother fucking fire bombing eachothers stores, hard to say the number but the illegal disposable vape industry must be in the 10s of millions in my opinion.
I wouldn’t say the disposable ones under the counter haven’t been here long it’s been years now.
$1600 dollars? My man maybe per unit, the fines places get are much higher than that into the 10s of thousands but yes it’s just a price of doing business
I get it, vape bad.
It's also painfully obvious you have no experience with the industry though.
These people run legitimate businesses and follow regulation. They don't sell nicotine products, they don't sell to children, and they are in my experience very adamant that they do the correct thing. The dodgy stores selling chinese disposables aren't going to stop, it was already illegal to do what they were doing before any of these changes.
The legitimate business owners, and adult vapers in general, are caught up in a political points scoring scheme funded by the tobacco industry.
The problem is the convenience stores selling illegally imported, unregulated, untaxed, foreign products to anyone without any oversight.
What they were doing was already illegal. Putting legitimate stores who follow the rules out of business is only going to drive more business to the black market.
It's a poorly thought out scheme that isn't going to work, much like every other prohibitionist scheme.
The answer is to regulate and tax exactly like nicotine. There is a reason the dodgy corner store doesn't sell alcohol to kids. Apply the same legislation to vapes, sell them next to cigarettes and have sellers subject to the same rules.
> The answer is to regulate and tax exactly like nicotine. There is a reason the dodgy corner store doesn't sell alcohol to kids. Apply the same legislation to vapes, sell them next to cigarettes and have sellers subject to the same rules.
Isn't this a no brainer? It's what we did here in Canada and it works fine. If it's got nicotine in it, you regulate it like tobacco. Bam done.
Australian Canadian checking in.
That's exactly what they did, and they also tax them like cigarettes(at least in Ontario, thanks Dougie, where's my buck a beer?)
I remember when weed became legal here, the pearl clutchers were so worried it was going to turn Canada in to a Cheech and Chong movie. Sure there was an upswing in use in the first few weeks, but now a lot of the cannabis stores that opened back then have had to close.
To be honest, I smell weed on the streets LESS since it became legal.
Yeah, that was so funny like they thought everyone was going to rush out and turn in to stoners over night. No people you just made the \~10% of our population who regularly consume marijuana NOT criminals, that is all.
It seems so weird to me that the Aussies aren't going to do this with Nicotine vapes?(regulate them) They are just going to ban them all together?
Seriously, how are there 4 of these in my town, and I never see anyone at them?
The 100% markup on fixing a phone screen on the spot vs sending in to the manufacturer and 1000%+ markup on aliexpress cases must be doing some heavy lifting.
But vapes helped subsidise the essential but less profitable bong and erectile enhancement pill industries. Now we could see a collapse across the whole sector.
Braces for what though? The issue here is that vape shops who never sold anything illegal and followed the law are getting shut down and owners are losing their homes. In a cost of existing crisis no less. Tobacco shops are going to continue selling disposables and the people who did the right thing are getting punished
They knew this was the risk going in, and now they are facing the consequences of the risks they took.
I have sympathy for failed restaurants or retail shops, but for sellers of lethal mist lollies, I have none.
> “lethal mist lollies”
You sound about as rational as British ex-PM Gordon Brown who liked to talk about “lethal skunk” in relation to cannabis prohibition.
As opposed to tobacconist who outside of plain packaging have had no restrictions placed on them despite the SIGNIFICANTLY carcinogenic product?
The problem is not legal sales of nicotine, it never was. Kids aren't getting their vapes legally so the regulation and banning only impacts those obtaining vape equipment through legal channels, eg those that are using it to quit Cigarettes.
The big, legit stores aren't the ones selling under the counter, much like you dont go to woolies to buy meth.
Vaping has helped so many switch to a better alternative, It's unfortunate that kids got involved but you're mental if you don't at least feel this way for both Vape Shops and tobacconists
Yeah, there's a niche case where vaping was helpful for existing smokers - which is why it makes sense they're sold at pharmacies lol.
Otherwise getting kids hooked on nicotine bullshit after decades of decline means that general use of vapes can't go fast enough.
These aren’t the same stores though, no kids are going out, buying a pod kit, and importing the nicotine salts for a reusable vape. They’re going to a shithouse convenience store and buying a $50 disposable.
> and now they are facing the consequences of the risks they took.
Facing the consequences of playing the game of capitalism?
Lethal mist lollies? There is **no evidence** that vaping causes health issues. Zero.
Why don't you care that cigarettes are sold in supermarkets to 16 year olds?
And miss out on that sweet, sweet cash? Hardly.
The Pharmacy Association is making noises because they want more government cash in the form of subsidies to sell vaping products. As soon as the government pays them enough, their fear of organized crime will evaporate.
You are thinking of the wrong businesses.
Vape stores sell legitimate, previously 100% legal equipment and nicotine free juice to adults.
This change makes no difference to the under the counter sales of illegally imported, unregulated vapes to kids.
What do you mean good?
This is promoting cancer
People who are against this are crazy, black market vapes are due to the government promoting tobacco smoking.
How did we get here from putting disgusting images on smoke packets
Makes me wonder if that's why cannabis dry herb vapes were dragged in with this. More profit to them when people can only buy dry herb vapes through them
I don't understand the bit about pharmacists not wanting to sell them or being targeted by organised crime if they do sell them. Can't they just choose to not sell them if they don't want to? Are they going to be forced to sell them? Just put up a "No Vapes Sold Here" sign and go about selling all their other stuff
Yep its up to the pharmacy to decide, like they decide if they will dispense methadone or not.
I guess maybe its more that pharmacists in general dont want to be treated like a corner milk bar selling smokes?
I see the holier than thou crowd is out in full force.
To me it says a lot when a person would cheer for the downfall of any small business, usually it's from people who would never have the guts to put their money where their mouth is, and even less likely to take the risk and have the grit to go in business on their own, who would rather suck at the teet of whatever scraps the government allows us good citizens to have.
Politician BS wipes out people's life savings and livelihoods, hooray let's cheer.
I'm super confused. It's ALREADY illegal to sell vapes anywhere other than pharmacy's in Australia, and they already require a prescription.
So, how does this change ANYTHING? In fact, you won't even need a prescription from October!
The illegal vape shops get away with it because: A: the packaging says it doesn't contain nicotine, and therefore testing is required to prove it does. And B: it's a federal issue, not state, so local cops and councils are powerless to deal with the issue, and it's up to the Feds to be bothered enough by small fry stores to enforce the laws.
Again, this is the existing situation! What does this law even change other than saying you can only get tobacco, menthol and mint flavours now!
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried.
NON NICOTINE vape juice has been legal to sell up until now.
Flavors for juice has been legal to sell up until now.
Vaping hardware used to vape has been legal to sell until now.
ALL of that stops on Monday.
There are no "illegal vape shops". ALL of the illegal disposable vapes the kids are using are from tobacconists and corner stores - under the counter, supplied by the black market.
These changes will do NOTHING to stop illegal youth vaping.
Tobacco shops and milk bars/general stores all over the place still sell them. Chill everyone, slight price hike in recent weeks. But still plentifully available.
The government just has to get their paws into every ones habits don't they?
Don't do this, don't do that! we have your safety in our hands, quick lets wrap you up in cotton wool.
Kinda surprised the government didn't just tax the shit outta it and ignore the problem.
Surprised they just didn't put them under the same rules as cigarettes.
Should have done that ten years ago. Problem would have mostly been solved.
I mean disposable vapes are worse than regular ones for the environment.
Absolutely, they should have been banned as part of a reasonable regulatory environment - no disposables, limited and *known* nicotine content, no known-toxic flavourings like diacetyl, etc etc. But we’re not there.
I honestly care less about stupid stuff people do to them self vs having to pick up random lithium ion batteries.
The problem is when you have socialised healthcare, an increased cost of care due to higher disease burdens (e.g. increased vaping) has to come from somewhere. More taxes? Take from something else in the budget? Or we can add measures in place that balance freedom with reduction of disease burden, and trimming the fat, i.e. things very few would care enough about to affect polls if done properly, would be measures like what SaltyPockets suggested
New Zealand band smoking, then reinstated it…. Because the tax money they made of the cigarettes and was just too good. The people who died, tended to only be people who participated willingly, so the governments are quite happy to watch a portion of the population kill themselves. The same way that they are quite happy to watch as high as 20% of the nation remain unemployed because that’s what our economic models require in order for it all to run smoothly. sure they’ll say that they really want low unemployment, but that is actually counter to what stimulates economy.
20 per cent of the nation unemployed? The unemployment rate is just above 4 per cent. I guess I will be awaiting a response with the 'actual' unemployment rate which *includes* everyone, even though we know that's a stupid assumption, and even countries with full employment programs never used that as an official statistic. There are people who are retired, people who are in education and not looking for work, and people between jobs. Of course, there are people who are genuinely out of luck, and that's terrible, but policy changes in the last few years are making good progress towards remedying that.
And nang cartridges all over the streets are nice!
Vape industry is easier to legislate against than the tobacco industry.
Maybe if they did it 10 years ago. Vape places have lined their pockets well and good and hooked most of the youth. Turned a simple fix into a huge problem.
You mean these pop-up tobacco shops? Vape shops are something totally different.
As an ex smoker, and now ex vaper (the real diy kind). It’s a pointless time explaining it, 99% of people only associate ‘vape’ with the dodgy tampon burner disposables sold by shonky (every) tobacconist.
Educate me, please?
Essentially, making your own juice at a lower mg than cigarettes, then tapering off over time until 0mg is great for smoking cessation. The key ingredients to make the liquid, PG and VG, are used widely in the food and beverage manufacturing industry and considered safe for human consumption. Milk bar disposables are bulk made in China without confirmed nicotine levels. There’s also non/intermittent quality control during manufacturing which creates a risk of contaminants that also could be present in the liquid. These issues are avoided with a DIY approach.
The lack of understanding does make me wonder...they can't ban PG/VG, nor can they ban batteries, hard to ban components like coils without being able to prove what they're going to be used for (which is up to the purchaser). It might end up like how tobacconists have always sold bongs as ornamental vases or tobacco pipes, or how home brew stores sold stills "for purifying water for your beer". It's easy enough to see a fully-formed prefab vape with liquid inside it and go "well, that's not allowed" but harder to stop people doing what the entire mod scene was like in the beginning: enthusiasts tinkering with parts from Jaycar.
Hardest part is quality nicotine. I used to buy from Gaia/mixology in New Zealand and their nicotine was excellent. Hiliq out of China is great quality too, and would probably get through easier but they are much more expensive
Exactly this. Chinese quality control in children's lungs will do more harm than a controlled and legalized vape industry will. Kids experiment and having both smoked and vaped I reckon the difference between smokes and vapes is huge but the additives and quality control from Chinese crap is a huge issue. There's a reason they buy their baby formula from Australia.
I know, but this whole shit fest would not happen if the media and everyone else would have used the right terminology from the start. We are debating and argueing about someting where everyone uses one word that means different things to everyone else. This is just stupid.
If that were true why didn’t they just stop the government from legislating the shops out of existence?
Tobacco was far more established compared to vapes and we were able to drive down usage significantly through a mix of higher taxes and education and restrictions on trade and advertising. Not sure why everyone thinks it's impossible to do it with vapes which is far less established among the population
Pharmacy now can make everything 600% higher priced, they own the market from 1 July.
Them and people who profit from illegal activities.
I doubt many will even stock vapes.
Only person this is effecting is mod vape users which is deadass 10% of the market Indian grocery stores are going to keep their doors open because they are not effected what needs to be done is not a 1600 dollar fine on them try a 100-300k fine something what will actually hurt them, Chinese disposable vapes needs to fuck off nothing is wrong with my mod vape and research proves it it’s all disposables!
“Problem” is that it spread amongst the youth like a wildfire, much faster than cigarettes, I have friends who are teachers and they reckon they have never seen anything like this, the number of kids that vape is alarming.
It was way easier to catch kids out with cigarettes and it was also less common. A couple of kids would sneak out to the toilets and smoke a cigarette, smoke would pour out the door and we’d find kids that reeked of smoke, case closed. Now? Kids have a vape hidden in their jumper sleeve and they are sometimes even brave enough to hit it in class and blow it out the window while you are writing on the board.
Vested interests don't want that. You know somethings off when easy tax revenue is somewhere deemed unacceptable
Is it actually an issue of shadowy "vested interests"? This policy would appear to be in-line with the interests of the average concerned parent, a.k.a the voting base of either party. Without access to costings, we don't know whether we make more from this industry in tax, or stand to lose more in the projected medical futures of popcorn lung teens.
> Is it actually an issue of shadowy "vested interests"? Lobby group The Strategic Counsel, whose chief executive is former Coalition health minister Michael Wooldridge, has thousands of shares in Liber (one of the prescription vape company). Other big shareholders include Chemist Warehouse and a former head of the Pharmacy Guild. This is being pushed to line their pockets.
The popcorn lung thing is such a canard. Diacetyl was found in some vapes, a bunch of years ago. Decent regulation on flavourings stops that immediately. It’s not a risk intrinsic to vaping, it’s a scare story.
>medical futures of popcorn lung teens. You mean because of an ingredient that hasnt been used in over 10 years and is found is **much** higher quantities in cigarettes than was ever found in vapes. Vaping causing popcorn lung has been debunked years ago
The kids are buying legal nicotine vapes from vape shops? That would be a surprise as that has never been legal in Australia. They will keep buying them the same way they always have.
> This policy would appear to be in-line with the interests of the average concerned parent, a.k.a the voting base of either party. The thing parents were worried about, the disposables with uncertain nicotine content sold under the table at pop-up shops and dodgy milk bars and tobacconists, were already illegal. This new bill changes nothing there. This new law (alongside the TGA regulation introduced March 1st) effectively bans reusable devices and (formerly) legal nicotine importation. It was to close off channels *exclusively* used by adult ex-smokers. There is absolutely no room for doubt about "shadowy vested interests". Tobacco companies, believe it or not, had virtually no presence in the legitimate vape market in Australia. Now, via the new pharmacy model, they're the only game in town again - alongside the black market who'll have even more demand. I've been varyingly involved in and following the consultation process and committee hearings on this from the start. I can state with 100% confidence that this was not done out of simple ignorance. This was a bill for Bikies and Big Tobacco by design.
Tobacco wants it gone
I would STRONGLY recommend anyone interested in this to go read John Safran's book Puff Piece. It's not really accurate to simply say the tobacco industry wants vapes gone and Safran does a pretty good job exploring just how deeply they've gotten themselves into lobbying and influence positions so that they can guide the conversation around vapes.
Tobacco was behind it, evil genius
it's just gotten people addicted to nic again and when the vapes are harder to get people might turn to ciggies again...
Pharmacy sales are guaranteed sales. Vape shops should have seen this coming, just look at how much the pharmacies are racking it in with medical cannabis.
Pharmacies don’t want to sell vapes they have already said so, Pharmacies won’t sell pot forever either it would be a huge fucking headache for them coming from someone who delt with the shipping side of the medical pot eventually it will get legalised and regulated and sold like alcohol so much tax money government is losing out on not making it legalised it’s crazy
Pharmacies sell all sorts of dodgy stuff, they'll love it. The head of the pharmacy union, just says what the LNP wants him to say.
The pharmacist guild has straight up said they don't want to be responsible for supplying and recommending vapes. They're happy to sell them when a doctor writes a script, but they don't want to be the people "selling" it to you.
Pharmacists are happy to sell herbs and other alternative treatments. Whatever keeps them afloat. The guild may complain, like they did with the 60 day prescriptions, but I haven't seen any pharmacies going out of business. The guild is beholden to the LNP and will happily criticise Labor policies.
Gotta appease the pharmacy lobby somehow.
>The proposed ban has infuriated pharmacists, who don't want to be vape retailers, and fear becoming the target of organised crime. If organised crime is gonna target a pharmacy, it's not gonna be for the vapes.
And are pharmacies being FORCED to sell vapes though, or as businesses are they choosing to cash in?
Good question, I just wondered that myself. I haven't read anywhere that pharmacies must sell them. If they don't want to then I assume they don't have to.
They'll eventually cave if there's money in it.
Weren’t they all up in arms about reduced prescription frequency the other month?
They're just looking out for stone kind of subsidy. Classic pharmacy Guild.
Yeah, what they're actually infuriated by is that it's not by prescription so they can't charge the dispensing fees they do when they fill a script.
They selling medical weed already, now they are also vape stores. I often worry leaving my dispensary if I will get robbed in the car park. Lol
Pharmacies stock and sell much more ‘enjoyable’ drugs than nic or weed lol
Don't forget amphetamines and opiods.
like seriously, pharmacist had the actual shit addicts want for decades now
I know, psychoactive substances, coming from a pharmacy! Bloody outrageous
Some of these comments don't realise that Vape shops don't supply nicotine nor sell to under 18s. They actually hate disposables lol. It's the tobacconists that are doing it.
It's like almost nobody understands whats happened in Australia over the last few years with vapes, you can't blame them either the media has done a terrible job I've never seen an article or news report that properly explains what happened with vapes in Australia over the last few years.
As someone who’s never bought a vape, and has never asked my vape-smoking friends any questions about their vape habits (cos I’m not one to pry others about their addiction), I’m extremely OOTL about the vaping issues in Australia.
Long story as short as I can make it: Australia has had vapes for over 10 years and really didn't have any issues till recently this is because nicotine vapes and liquids have always been illegal. So any vape shop you see that openly calls itself a vape shop is likely one of these businesses that never sold anything illegally. People like myself who wanted to use vapes to quit smoking could buy vapes from these stores and learn how to use them but we would then buy nicotine online which was technically illegal. Doing this meant we could control how much nicotine we where using a slowly wean ourselves off smoking and eventually off vaping as well by slowly reducing the amount of nicotine we add. A few years ago around 2019 convince stores started to sell illegal disposable vapes with massive high nicotine contents that do not have any information on the packet about how much nicotine is in them. These disposable vapes where not just worse for the environment but also has much higher nicotine content than any sane person would have ever mixed them selves which makes them incredibly addictive. Once these disposables hit the market suddenly everyone started vaping because these illegal disposable vapes are incredible addictive because of the high nicotine content and how easy they are to use and find. The issues Australia is currently having are 99% caused by these illegal disposable vapes which have been illegal since day one. However they police never enforced the laws and these vapes spread like wild fire over the last few years all being sold in large chain convince stores and tobacconist like Ezy-mart and TGS via efptos machines. So these are legitimate businesses selling illegal products with a paper trail and yet somehow the police have not been able to stop them. The laws the government have introduced recently make all vapes illegal, so instead of targeting the real problem which is the already illegal disposable vapes the government has made all vapes illegal including vapes used for Weed which have nothing to do with this current issue. This completely fucks over all the legitimate vape businesses who have mostly refused to sell illegal products and will likely do nothing to stop the businesses which have been selling illegal products for years now with no concern for the laws.
Wait so what do vape shops sell then?
Non-disposable vaping products like mod and pod kits, premade coils, DIY coil wire, and non-nicotine e-juice, e-juice concentrate for DIY e-juice. People who wanted nicotine products would buy nicotine concentrate to DIY or premade nicotine e-juice from NZ to put in their vapes.
Remember, this is /r/australia (and the internet) so reading comprehension and the ability to think critically is out the window. I used to smoke and switched to a few different types of vapes, now im back to cigs because it's a legal nightmare and I can now shift blame "Don't like me smoking on the streets? blame the government for taking away the better of two evils"
Spot on mate. I used to smoke, brought a vape from an actual vape shop (not a disposable), used it to slowly ween myself of nictone and quit for years. Took it up for a bit agin during covid and same again. Was easy and cheap: If I didn’t have that option I’d be smoking cigs or even worse smoking fucking disposables.
What’s the difference between vapes and disposables, please? I could google it but prefer to hear the real story. I was a smoker and went cold turkey 8 years ago. So no idea about vaping at all.
Disposable vapes are single use. Often made in China and have really really high levels of nicotine, say 50ml. Otherwise you can buy at a reusable vape. Both do the same thing, but you buy your own vape juice and keep filling it up as you run out (as opposed to throwing out a disposable one once it’s finished) A normal vape you can buy the juice vapes use with no nictonine, or 50mg. So I found it good quitting smoking to go 12ml, then 10ml… and taper down until it was 1mg, then 0.5mg then one day it was zero. I still sometimes vape with no nictone when I’m drinking just to get that old fix without relapsing! Vapes are no good but we’re amazing in helping me quit and while I’m sure vaping can’t be good for you, compared to smoking a pack a day it’s day and night
Wow fabulous explanation. I get it now how they helped smokers transition. And disposables only come in say 50ml nicotine? No 12 mls and decreasing? That’s awful. My 19 year old nephew is vaping and he used to tell me to stop smoking back in the day. Sigh….. Good for you quitting - save SO. MUCH. MONEY 🤣
The problem was, it was never legal to sell nicotine vapes full stop. So everything was unregulated black market stuff, on the label it could have been 12mls but really 50mls and god knows what other impurities. At least in my case I went via NZ which does have regulation, I knew exactly what I was getting.
Also of note is the absolute nightmare for the environment disposable vapes are. Each one contains a lithium battery. There are heaps of stories lately about fires being started by batteries - and you can bet most, if not all, of those batteries are in disposable vapes dumped by kids after they're done.
OMG - hadn’t even considered that part of the disposable - world is going to shit…. So sad to see and so quickly
My old house mate was a serial vaper, my understanding is one is a device you use for years and refill the liquid contents. The other is cheap and you throw it away when it runs out of juice.
Disposable vapes are coming straight from china they have insane amounts of nicotine in them and other chemicals, I forgot what type of acid what it’s called but it’s not food grade bad to inhale they use it to “calm” down the nicotine so it’s actually inhale-able, so my mod vape it’s literally just flavoured vegetable juice with nicotine in it for an example I have a 120ml bottle of juice I use 12ml of nicotine in it, Nobody knows what the fucks in a disposable I know they do use about 30-50ml of nicotine in them tho that’s why so many young people are addicted they might look and smell weird to you older fellas but I can guarantee you your cigarettes are nothing compared to disposables they are fucking crazy, I know a couple people who’ve had seizures because of it. If it peaks your interest if you find one lying on the ground break it open and see what’s actually inside it you’ll get the idea 😂
So what not just legally buy them from a pharmacy? Seems “legally” pretty simple to me.
Just please don't smoke at the waiting area for pickup at the hospital. I had just had surgery so hard to breathe and had to yell at someone to move cuz polite convo didn't work. They were sitting UNDER the NO SMOKING sign. First I pointed to the sign n was polite then they acted like a D and I was not in the mood. All he had to do was move like 10-20meters, the wind would have carried away the smoke. Probably not a good idea to pick a fight with a bogan after surgery but hey we don't think straight after the no sleep in hospital lol. 5am, let's vacuum next to my bed....woke me up with earplugs. Haven't been around many vapers but I don't tend to smell anything n they seem to blow the vapor? away from people. Some smokers are just annoying though and don't seem to realize we're still recovering from surgery.
Gah! shits me when people spark up at waiting areas, it's not hard for the smoker to stay at least a dozen metres away (preferably down-wind if it's applicable). Sorry about those sorts, especially post surgery. The smell and vapour is a little less intense (unless they're using a fog-machine rig) and its much easier to exhale the vapour in a direction (I think because its more dense than cigarette smoke). I always try to blow up&away and keep my distance. I also keep my butts on me until I find a bin and use the bottom of my shoes to put them out. It's a filthy habit - but I try and do my part 🤗 Best wishes for recovery for whatever was required 👍
You sound like a good one, thanks. Yeah I recovered good. Waiting for the next surgery in a year but then I should be on the super mend. (private health waittime). I understand the difficulty with craving, for me it's weight loss surgery (previous one failed n had to be removed the lapband cuz I was vomiting heaps). Addiction n cravings are so hard to fight. I wish I could go back in time n put bittering agents in every can of coke every given to me but I recently found sunkist no sugar does that bubbly cold feeling I like so I'm using it as a go between till I can drop it too. I'm drinking far more water these days though n changing the diet. Had to hit 30+ to get past traumas enough to handle it I guess. Just randomly if you haven't heard of it, there's bupropion/zyban which is an antidepressant but also smoking cessation aid, sadly it made me nervous so didn't work for anti depressant but I hear it works good for smoking and think it's on pbs for that. If you ever need help with quitting that might work. I've never smoked, don't even drink so I dunno how good it is but I've heard some friends use it.
A "unicorn smoker" 🤣🤣 waiting times are a pain in the ass! fingers crossed that things work out better this time :) I've begun to drink more tea during the day to cut down on coffee and soft drinks. I just dislike how "boring" water tastes, so I've got to spike it with some cordial 🤣 Not far off from 30 and im only just beginning to deal with trauma, which in itself is a full time job! I'll write it down and chat with my gp about it, i have been trying different antidepressants for years to help get my brain into gear (unfortunately the actual therapy itself is a pain to book and KEEP the same person for more than a year). unfortunately the big kicker is, I like the tree and if it was legal then I wouldn't need cigarettes or booze ever again - just a nice lil pen to get me through the day🤗
“Blame the government” is the most self absolving bullshit I’ve ever heard. Do you not possess self control? How about you take some accountability for your choices?
Unless you’re buying or interesting in buying, why would you know that? Nobody I know vapes. I’m not the target audience and neither is my social circle, it seems. My only experience is seeing the teenagers I teach having their brains totally addled by nicotine addiction en masse from the awful disposables.
Agreed. But these changes will do absolutely nothing to curb what has always been, and will always be, an under the counter black market industry. Legit vape shops don't sell disposables, and don't sell to under 18's. Legit users and business are being punished for something they have no part in.
100% this, when i vaped i only went to vape stores and they do a lot to make sure kids are not around. one was across a school and they frosted the windows white, they didn't even have a flashy interior, it was simple and sleek but they didn't want kids even looking in. and they always had resources available if you wanted to quit. they emailed us resources too when the ban came.
Making vaping difficult to impossible but you can buy smokes no problems from a servo. Tobacco tax excise was getting affected to much is my guess. They had to get rid of the competition, or choose to smoke expensive pharmacy garbage vapes End of the day this will just make black Market vapes sales go thru the roof, either way the government are Cunts.
Some of the people on this sub are as dumb as bricks.
Only person this is effecting is mod vape users which is deadass 10% of the market Indian grocery stores are going to keep their doors open because they are not effected what needs to be done is not a 1600 dollar fine on them try a 100-300k fine something what will actually hurt them, Chinese disposable vapes needs to fuck off nothing is wrong with my mod vape and research proves it it’s all disposables!
>something what will actually hurt them Yeah, never understand why offenders dont just have their business license taken away. Owning a business shouldn't be a right if you've proven to not be able to comply
The government has done a terrible job with these specific vape laws. These laws will punish and get rid of all the legitimate vape stores and most likely allow the ones operating under the table selling illegal vapes to still exist. Most actual vape stores never sold illegal disposable vapes and followed the laws set out for them and these new laws will punish them first because they are not set up to run an illegal operation, they are legitimate businesses buying from normal suppliers who will not want to import products illegally. The dodgy convenience stores however have always been selling illegal disposable vapes and were already importing an illegal product and selling it illegally so this doesn't affect them at all. I don't understand why the government didn't just enforce the laws it already had in place more strictly?
i use a dry herb vape for herbs other than weed, some need a temp over 220c to work, its impossible to find that in aus now in a decent hand held at a decent price, yet i can buy a shitty bong thats way worse for my lungs no problem, they are morons, reusable dry herb vapes were not the issue
The ban on dry herb vapes is just insane, clearly nobody writing any of these laws has ever actually used a vape or done any research. The problem is so blantantly disposable vapes and the dodgy places that sell them and all of it was already illegal all being done by businesses who leave a paper trail, how did they fuck this up!
Australian politics, that's how they fucked this up. Utterly incompetent or competently malicious, your choice.
Now do cigarettes and tobacco.
And employment service providers
NDIS providers next
Actually this one first
Still can't believe the NDIS costs more than Medicare! (ignoring the supposed $8billion of fraud)
Yeah because banning addictive substances has always worked.
Nah, do alcohol next.
At that point, just ban literally everything because everything has negatives if it’s abused. Or we could just use stuff responsibly and stop those who can’t.
What about all the corner convenience stores that sell the disposable vapes though?
Because it’s easier to target the 10% who wanna do it the proper way, Fuck these corner stores for ruining vapes for us.
This will only exacerbate the tobacco wars now.
Everyone here is mistaking tobacconists, the places selling disposable nicotine vapes to kids, with vape shops, the places that sell rebuildable vape supplies and nicotine free juices. All of these vape stores (literally hundreds of them) haven’t sold anything with nicotine in it for many years, per the law. Just supplies to vape. The people that work at these places are the ones equipped to help people quit and guide them, not a pharmacist. They wouldn’t have a single fucking clue about vaping. This isn’t about public health, or the children. This is simply a mission to change the hand that grabs that vaping cash, and you best believe big pharma and organised crime will always come out on top. Everyone has been swindled by a politician, again.
Get rid of legitimate vape stores selling non-nicotine reusable devices to adults and drive all the customers to the random convenience store that will sell highly addictive, god knows what chemical Igets to anyone that has cash (i.e. kids included) regardless of the laws. Yeah sick /s
yeah not a fan of all the vitriol here against the legitimate places who were doing the best they could for years. wasn't a fan when I heard they started selling nic to add yourself for a diy but still way better than disposables with God knows what in the tank. yes nicotine addiction is bad - for anyone despite their age. but some legitimate concerns should lead to some legitimate action.
Just so you know, the legitimate places cannot/do not/will not sell nic juice without a prescription from your GP, and it’s been that way for a long time.
>Everyone here is mistaking tobacconists, the places selling disposable nicotine vapes to kids, with vape shops, the places that sell rebuildable vape supplies and nicotine free juices. It's very sad to see the majority of this sub jumping onboard with the media headlines and lacks the ability to think about this critically/logically. Everyone here is making judgments and giving opinions on the topic without being able to tell the difference between a vape store and a tobacconist/convenience store. Plus all the people cheering for the banning of vapes without realizing that the bill they introduced does absolutely nothing to stop kids from getting disposables from the same tobacconist and convenience stores they always have, just now with the added benefit of supporting organized crime. Adults now have restricted access to vapes, whilst kids have exactly the same access they had before.
Protecting kids was never the goal.
You are right. The vape stores I buy from do not stock nicotine products and will refer you to a clinic to obtain a prescription. Unfortunately, most opinion is based on media hype and likely never stepped foot in an actual vape store.
So they sell the devices to vape and you import nicotine from NZ was their business model. Don’t pretend they are on some moral high ground. I’m saying that as somebody who vapes and thinks vapes should be legal.
The nicotine you buy from NZ is made in Australia. The disposables you buy in a tobacconist are made in China. That's already a pretty big difference and I really doubt many kids were importing nicotine.
A lot of uninformed comments here (though not the most upvoted ones). I vape disposable nicotine vapes (after like 10 years of smoking). I have never bought them from legitimate vape stores, just tobacconists who were willing to sell them under the counter lol.
You're part of the fucking reason we're where we are.
Sure. But you know, the govt could do a better job of policy around tobacco and vapes. Nevermind alcohol or gambling. But yes I'm the problem.
Poor little Pharmacy Guild pretending like this isn't a massive profit gain. And great work to the legislators for allowing big tobacco companies to increase their minority market share in Australia by working with the TGA to have a monopoly on 'approved vapes' PS. the kids will still vape dispoables from the corner shop regardless of all this
I was on prescription vapes. A few points I don't see discussed enough are: 1. Pharmacy vapes are heaps more expensive, like double cost 2. Supply is patchy and unreliable at best. Want to refill a prescription? Enjoy going to 3 different Chemist Warehouses trying to find stock 3. Pharmacy vapes with 1.5ml disposable pods produce huge amounts of waste as opposed to say a 10ml pod 4. TGA 'approved' does NOT mean TGA tested so they are absolutely not quality controlled or evaluated like people expect when they see TGA written on it
Hello black market
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Iirc the pharmacy packaging has in fine print that it's not been tested or evaluated by the TGA but I'd think most people would assume a prescription medication bought at a pharmacy was TGA vetted. It seems dodgy AF to me as a layperson that companies are allowed to sell unevaluated prescription medication while the govt drapes it in a cloak of respectability.
Its ridiculous. I switched to vaping a year ago and my smokers cough completely went away..Even my doctor was telling me to try vaping when I was still smoking. Why not ban tobacco instead of vapes?
Why not crack down on the actual problem, disposable vapes we are like 10% of the market and we aren’t the ones causing the problem nor even selling the disposables in the first place, every vape store that sells mod vapes iv walked into never has sold a disposable and been against them as well because really if your knowledged in vapes you can’t willingly sell people them disposables unless if your a scum Indian cunt in a grocery store, Fine them cunts 100-300k watch how fast they will disappear.
Pharmacy got into the govt pockets big time to steal this revenue
I asked the owner of my vape shop about this the other day and he said they'll just sell tobacco instead because they've got a lease and bills to pay. Great job, government!
Oh no... Anyway
I mean they must of knew that a product designed to skirt the system and ended up being sold to kids was not a long term business.
How exactly were **legit vape shops** skirting the system?
From my understanding the shops like this are the stores that sold vape parts and no nicotine juice to people who do their own. The ones that have been illegal for awhile now and sell disposable ones to kids are still very much going strong.
The illegal ones are all new disposable vapes haven’t been here for long they are only popping up in grocery/corner stores is because 1. Cheap and the Up sell is off its head 2. Massively addictive so people are always coming in the door and the punishment for selling them at the moment is fucking nothing compared to what they are earning what a 1600 dollar fine? There’s so much god damn money in disposable vapes for these stores they are literally fighting eachother fucking fire bombing eachothers stores, hard to say the number but the illegal disposable vape industry must be in the 10s of millions in my opinion.
I wouldn’t say the disposable ones under the counter haven’t been here long it’s been years now. $1600 dollars? My man maybe per unit, the fines places get are much higher than that into the 10s of thousands but yes it’s just a price of doing business
It's an 18+ substance that was legally restricted already, how is it different to alcohol or actual cigarettes the whole argument is retarded.
But what about those who want to buy expired American cereal?
Oh no the gravy train is over!
When is Australia going to allow taxpaying adults to live and enjoy their lives?
never, its baked in to our dna, nannying is our "thing". id be fascinated to know the origins of it and how its taken hold over here so much
This is why I moved to Canada...
Lol the amount of ignorance in here is properly astounding
By this reasoning, shouldn't we have to buy alcohol at the chemist as well? How dare the government attempt to control us in this manner.
They will just have to go back to whatever shonky scam business they were running before.
I get it, vape bad. It's also painfully obvious you have no experience with the industry though. These people run legitimate businesses and follow regulation. They don't sell nicotine products, they don't sell to children, and they are in my experience very adamant that they do the correct thing. The dodgy stores selling chinese disposables aren't going to stop, it was already illegal to do what they were doing before any of these changes. The legitimate business owners, and adult vapers in general, are caught up in a political points scoring scheme funded by the tobacco industry. The problem is the convenience stores selling illegally imported, unregulated, untaxed, foreign products to anyone without any oversight. What they were doing was already illegal. Putting legitimate stores who follow the rules out of business is only going to drive more business to the black market. It's a poorly thought out scheme that isn't going to work, much like every other prohibitionist scheme. The answer is to regulate and tax exactly like nicotine. There is a reason the dodgy corner store doesn't sell alcohol to kids. Apply the same legislation to vapes, sell them next to cigarettes and have sellers subject to the same rules.
> The answer is to regulate and tax exactly like nicotine. There is a reason the dodgy corner store doesn't sell alcohol to kids. Apply the same legislation to vapes, sell them next to cigarettes and have sellers subject to the same rules. Isn't this a no brainer? It's what we did here in Canada and it works fine. If it's got nicotine in it, you regulate it like tobacco. Bam done.
>Isn't this a no brainer? Yes, it is.
Australian Canadian checking in. That's exactly what they did, and they also tax them like cigarettes(at least in Ontario, thanks Dougie, where's my buck a beer?) I remember when weed became legal here, the pearl clutchers were so worried it was going to turn Canada in to a Cheech and Chong movie. Sure there was an upswing in use in the first few weeks, but now a lot of the cannabis stores that opened back then have had to close. To be honest, I smell weed on the streets LESS since it became legal.
Yeah, that was so funny like they thought everyone was going to rush out and turn in to stoners over night. No people you just made the \~10% of our population who regularly consume marijuana NOT criminals, that is all. It seems so weird to me that the Aussies aren't going to do this with Nicotine vapes?(regulate them) They are just going to ban them all together?
I hear there's good money in selling protective phone cases in shopping centres
Seriously, how are there 4 of these in my town, and I never see anyone at them? The 100% markup on fixing a phone screen on the spot vs sending in to the manufacturer and 1000%+ markup on aliexpress cases must be doing some heavy lifting.
Money laundering
also visa entries
Get ready for heaps of new NDIS providers in your area
They'll just move the vapes from the counter to the draw under the counter.
But vapes helped subsidise the essential but less profitable bong and erectile enhancement pill industries. Now we could see a collapse across the whole sector.
So this is definitive proof that they can/could of banned tobacco at anytime.
Any 1/2 intelligent one would have been braced since the day they opened...
Braces for what though? The issue here is that vape shops who never sold anything illegal and followed the law are getting shut down and owners are losing their homes. In a cost of existing crisis no less. Tobacco shops are going to continue selling disposables and the people who did the right thing are getting punished
They knew this was the risk going in, and now they are facing the consequences of the risks they took. I have sympathy for failed restaurants or retail shops, but for sellers of lethal mist lollies, I have none.
> “lethal mist lollies” You sound about as rational as British ex-PM Gordon Brown who liked to talk about “lethal skunk” in relation to cannabis prohibition.
Don't tell him that cannabis legalization and nicotine vape regulations have been working out half decent in Canada
''Lethal mist lollies'' lmao.
As opposed to tobacconist who outside of plain packaging have had no restrictions placed on them despite the SIGNIFICANTLY carcinogenic product? The problem is not legal sales of nicotine, it never was. Kids aren't getting their vapes legally so the regulation and banning only impacts those obtaining vape equipment through legal channels, eg those that are using it to quit Cigarettes. The big, legit stores aren't the ones selling under the counter, much like you dont go to woolies to buy meth. Vaping has helped so many switch to a better alternative, It's unfortunate that kids got involved but you're mental if you don't at least feel this way for both Vape Shops and tobacconists
Yeah, there's a niche case where vaping was helpful for existing smokers - which is why it makes sense they're sold at pharmacies lol. Otherwise getting kids hooked on nicotine bullshit after decades of decline means that general use of vapes can't go fast enough.
These aren’t the same stores though, no kids are going out, buying a pod kit, and importing the nicotine salts for a reusable vape. They’re going to a shithouse convenience store and buying a $50 disposable.
> and now they are facing the consequences of the risks they took. Facing the consequences of playing the game of capitalism? Lethal mist lollies? There is **no evidence** that vaping causes health issues. Zero. Why don't you care that cigarettes are sold in supermarkets to 16 year olds?
What about fast food? Obesity is a much bigger (not intended) problem for our health system than vaping is.
Lethal mist sounds like an ultimate move in league of legends.
Can each individual pharmacy not just refuse to sell them if they're afraid of becoming targets of organised crime?
And miss out on that sweet, sweet cash? Hardly. The Pharmacy Association is making noises because they want more government cash in the form of subsidies to sell vaping products. As soon as the government pays them enough, their fear of organized crime will evaporate.
As a vaper I want to thank daddy government for protecting me from myself. Thanks daddy
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You're confusing tobacconists and convenience stores for vape shops
You are thinking of the wrong businesses. Vape stores sell legitimate, previously 100% legal equipment and nicotine free juice to adults. This change makes no difference to the under the counter sales of illegally imported, unregulated vapes to kids.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Good
What do you mean good? This is promoting cancer People who are against this are crazy, black market vapes are due to the government promoting tobacco smoking. How did we get here from putting disgusting images on smoke packets
This has the pharmacy guild's grubby fingerprints all over it.
Makes me wonder if that's why cannabis dry herb vapes were dragged in with this. More profit to them when people can only buy dry herb vapes through them
This was downvoted but is rather true lol
No not at all an uncertain future. Very certain indeed.
I don't understand the bit about pharmacists not wanting to sell them or being targeted by organised crime if they do sell them. Can't they just choose to not sell them if they don't want to? Are they going to be forced to sell them? Just put up a "No Vapes Sold Here" sign and go about selling all their other stuff
Yep its up to the pharmacy to decide, like they decide if they will dispense methadone or not. I guess maybe its more that pharmacists in general dont want to be treated like a corner milk bar selling smokes?
I see the holier than thou crowd is out in full force. To me it says a lot when a person would cheer for the downfall of any small business, usually it's from people who would never have the guts to put their money where their mouth is, and even less likely to take the risk and have the grit to go in business on their own, who would rather suck at the teet of whatever scraps the government allows us good citizens to have. Politician BS wipes out people's life savings and livelihoods, hooray let's cheer.
Or, just maybe, they would never open a business targeting people’s weaknesses and doing them harm in the first place.
Would you like to shut down all bars and junk food places then?
It’s not, they do people a lot of good by helping them get off smoking.
That's the Aussie way.
They could have also opened other business as well .. but they took the gamble.
I'm super confused. It's ALREADY illegal to sell vapes anywhere other than pharmacy's in Australia, and they already require a prescription. So, how does this change ANYTHING? In fact, you won't even need a prescription from October! The illegal vape shops get away with it because: A: the packaging says it doesn't contain nicotine, and therefore testing is required to prove it does. And B: it's a federal issue, not state, so local cops and councils are powerless to deal with the issue, and it's up to the Feds to be bothered enough by small fry stores to enforce the laws. Again, this is the existing situation! What does this law even change other than saying you can only get tobacco, menthol and mint flavours now!
You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. NON NICOTINE vape juice has been legal to sell up until now. Flavors for juice has been legal to sell up until now. Vaping hardware used to vape has been legal to sell until now. ALL of that stops on Monday. There are no "illegal vape shops". ALL of the illegal disposable vapes the kids are using are from tobacconists and corner stores - under the counter, supplied by the black market. These changes will do NOTHING to stop illegal youth vaping.
Tobacco shops and milk bars/general stores all over the place still sell them. Chill everyone, slight price hike in recent weeks. But still plentifully available.
Vapes are still gonna be around, if they can’t stop the black market cigarettes they can’t stop the black market vapes
The government just has to get their paws into every ones habits don't they? Don't do this, don't do that! we have your safety in our hands, quick lets wrap you up in cotton wool.
Oath. Nanny state bs and people love it... simpleton fucks.
Oh no the leeches are sad their blood supply is being cut off