Importing disposable, single-use vapes will be banned from January, the health minister, Mark Butler, will announce on Tuesday, in an attempt to prevent more children from becoming addicted to nicotine.
Butler will also announce that from January medical practitioners and nurse practitioners will be able to prescribe vapes, with patients able to fill their script at pharmacies. From March the personal importation of vapes will be banned, and there will also be a ban on the importation of non-therapeutic vapes.
“Vaping was sold to governments and communities around the world as a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit,” Butler said.
“It was not sold as a recreational product, especially not one targeted to our kids, but that is what it has become. The great majority of vapes contain nicotine and children are becoming addicted.”
The government will also introduce legislation to prevent domestic manufacture, advertisement, supply and commercial possession of non-therapeutic and disposable single-use vapes.
The government will provide an additional $25m to the Australian Border Force and $56.9m to the Therapeutic Goods Administration over two years for enforcement.
Before the reforms, billboards funded by the retail lobby group the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, headed by Brian Marlow, warn vapers they face two years in jail under the changes.
The ATA billboards, which have appeared in the Australian Capital Territory and Queensland, feature a photo of the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, alongside the slogan: “Under Albo’s Vape Ban You Could Be Jailed for 2 Years”. The ATA wants vapes treated the same way as tobacco products, able to be sold by retailers subject to certain requirements.
The Public Health Association of Australia chief executive, Adj Prof Terry Slevin, said there was nothing in the reforms being introduced to suggest individual vapers would be prosecuted and jailed.
“The message is complete bollocks, it’s a lie,” Slevin said.
A tobacco control expert with the University of Sydney, Prof Becky Freeman, described the billboards as “a scare campaign attempting to deflect attention away from a predatory and harmful industry and make it seem like the government is coming after individuals”.
“The new vaping laws are about holding the vaping manufacturing and retailing industry accountable for addicting Australian teenagers to cheap, flavoured and dangerous products,” she said.
The billboards coincide with a campaign targeting the federal Greens, with a website providing a direct link to call their office phone numbers. The website urges people to call and “demand” the Greens legalise vaping.
The changes will go to the executive council for signoff in December. As the House of Representatives will not sit after that until February 2024, any disallowance motion cannot be raised until then.
But Slevin said he was confident the Senate, including the Greens, would not support a disallowance motion.
“I have been speaking to the Greens very constructively and I believe federally the Greens fully understand the damage caused by vaping and will constructively support the reforms,” Slevin said.
Butler has previously said the reforms are not aimed at prosecuting individuals. “The laws focus on vendors, not on people, not on customers, certainly not on kids, and that’s what we want to see enforced,” he said in May.
The Greens health spokesperson, Senator Jordon Steele-John, said he was aware that “retail and vaping organisations are encouraging people to contact their MPs”.
“My office has received calls and emails from folks engaged with this campaign, as we do on many issues,” he said. “The Australian Greens will consider the government’s proposed changes when more details are released [on Tuesday].”
Marlow, who is also the director of Legalise Vaping Australia, said the billboards warn of jail because “the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance has been alerted to an individual who has been charged in Western Australia for possession of a vape”.
Marlow could not provide further details of the case, including whether the person was facing jail time. But he added: “Possessing nicotine vaping liquid in the ACT carries a maximum penalty of a $32,000 fine and/or 2 years imprisonment … There are at least three other states and territories with a similar maximum offence.”
He also said: “And, you know, they’re proposing some regulatory changes that they’re saying are going to happen at every state and territory level. Well, unless they’re proposing to overturn potential imprisonment for vapers, then the assumption would be that vapers could still face imprisonment.”
