Australia's new vaping laws are "certain to fail,” a leading expert in smoking cessation has warned.
Dr Colin Mendelsohn says that instead of restricting access to vapes by putting them behind chemist counters, the government should “legalise and regulate” them.
“While in an ideal world people would neither smoke cigarettes nor use vapes, the latter are an effective method in weaning people off cigarettes and are estimated to be up to 95 per cent safer according to various studies,” he claimed.
Dr Mendelsohn said that in addition to regulation, more education is needed to better inform people about vapes - both in terms of possible health risks and their potential benefits. “As it stands,” he said, “the negative view of vaping is mostly based on misinformation”.
‘Cigarettes a far bigger problem than vapes’
He said that although vapes are a cause of litter and pollution, and can be a fire risk, their environmental impact is far lower than that of cigarettes.
“I think it's important to keep it in perspective,” he said. “I think cigarette butts are a far bigger problem in terms of litter, their non-biodegradability, their harm to marine life and so on. Their risk of bushfires, house fires, harm to air quality. I think they're a much bigger problem.
“There's nearly five trillion cigarette butts discarded each year in the world. They are the main cause of litter globally. I think we put the harms that we think are there out of proportion because we have some negative view which has become the dominant narrative.
“The only way we're going to [learn how to] recycle and control the environmental issue is through legalising and regulating vaping, and that is quite possible through a national manufacturer funded program.”
While Dr Mendelsohn acknowledges that vapes have become too attractive to young people, he warns that the effects of the alternative - cigarettes - are overwhelmingly worse.
Alcohol and cigarettes are deadly,” he said. “And they're available from every corner store. I mean, it's ridiculous.”
New vaping laws ineffective
Dr Mendelsohn warns that Australia’s new vape laws, which make the devices available only from pharmacies, is a step in the wrong direction.
He said: “This is the most effective quitting aid we've got and the most popular, and we're saying to people, well, you can buy cigarettes anywhere you like, but if you want to vape you have to jump through all these hoops. And it's just not risk proportionate to the risk of the product.
“The new legislation is certain to fail. We're quite sure about that. The model that's being proposed is not going to appeal to vapers, people aren't going to do it.”
He said the strict laws will simply push people who want to vape to the country’s booming black market.
"The black market will continue to thrive,” he warned. “It'll continue to sell vapes to young people and we will still have the youth vaping problem.
“The products will continue to be unregulated, so they will be more risky. And, and unfortunately, it's going to make it very hard for adults to get access to legal products to help them quit smoking. So I think it's bound to fail."
