Let them vape …

E-cigarettes are devices which vaporise a liquid for inhalation, first successfully developed for commercial sale by a Chinese scientist in 2003. Hon Lik was a 52 year old pharmacist and heavy smoker and like most smokers, he was quite aware of the harms of smoking tobacco.

He was motivated to invent a new device for inhaling nicotine, the main addictive and psychoactive component of tobacco, in order to reduce the health risks associated with his habit.

For many people, managing addictions can be quite difficult. Sitting somewhere between a psychological and a physiological issue, there is an ever-changing academic discussion on what an addiction is and what the best way to manage it is.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT) is Australia’s institutionalised answer to smoking. NRT includes such things as nicotine gum and patches, which you can buy off the shelf at your local supermarket. These are products that deliver nicotine to a person’s body in an attempt to curb cravings for cigarettes. Yet many smokers, even those who know the harms of tobacco, will still guiltily claim to enjoy a cigarette every now and then. It has been suggested that the ritual that goes with smoking a cigarette may play a part too.

Perhaps this is why the e-cigarette has proven so popular and lead many to share anecdotes of how they quit or reduced smoking by using one. Until very recently, these products were not regulated at all.

Several applications have been made to Australia’s institution for managing NRT, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), to regulate e-cigarettes or to regulate the sale of nicotine-containing liquids for e-cigarettes. Several applications have been entirely knocked back by the TGA and they are still considering the more recent push to regulate the sale of nicotine for e-cigarettes, which is currently prohibited without prescription in Australia.

E-cigarettes pose a unique challenge to the tobacco industry. If they are allowed to be a sold in a similar fashion to tobacco (age restrictions, no advertising etc.), then they pose a direct competitive threat to the stranglehold that tobacco companies currently have.

But if they are restricted more than tobacco, then the government is essentially giving a competitive advantage to the market for tobacco. If they are banned, as some organisations have suggested, then we will see the usual set of problems that prohibition always causes. Black markets, unknown products, lack of quality control, criminal enterprise and an increase in overall harms. It is disturbing that some organisations which claim to be pro-health are pushing the idea of prohibition, which has been shown time and time again to increase harms to individual and community well-being.

Nobody has suggested that e-cigarettes are harmless. Prominent international health organisations, such as the Royal College of Physicians in the UK have looked into the available evidence and concluded that e-cigarettes are around 95% less harmful than smoking tobacco.

There is a real chance for many smokers to switch from smoking to vaporising, reducing their potential for negative health consequences. Regulating e-cigarettes to ensure manufacturing standards, sales restrictions and product safety will protect consumers from dangerous products without pushing them away from the market all together.

The Eros Association has campaigned alongside vaporiser retailers, consumers and advocates in the past, including a protest on the steps of Victorian parliament to ‘let them vape’. We strongly believe in a regulated industry that isn’t regulated to a point where it cannot compete with tobacco. We believe that much of the regulation so far introduced around Australia has effectively given the tobacco market a competitive advantage, by making vape products difficult to access. We also support the New Nicotine Alliance’s application to the TGA to regulate nicotine for e-cigarette use, as is done in many other parts of the world, including across Europe. We strongly stand against prohibitionists of all sorts, though we share a common goal in wanting to reduce harms in the community.

*Nick Wallis worked for several years in regional commercial radio before returning to Melbourne and working in radio sponsorship sales and media monitoring. Nick began a degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at La Trobe University and also started producing a podcast focusing on the many issues surrounding drugs, which partly lead to him being hired by the Eros Association. Running as a candidate for the Australian Sex Party in the 2013 federal election and 2014 Victorian election, Nick is passionate about protecting people’s civil liberties.