{"id":25106,"date":"2025-06-25T09:47:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T09:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/?p=25106"},"modified":"2025-06-25T09:47:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T09:47:04","slug":"australias-vape-crackdown-backfires-as-black-market-outpaces-legal-sales-1700-to-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/post\/australias-vape-crackdown-backfires-as-black-market-outpaces-legal-sales-1700-to-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s vape crackdown backfires as black market outpaces legal sales 1,700 to one"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n

Australia\u2019s strict vaping laws appear to be backfiring, with black market sales now outstripping legal ones by almost 1,700 to one.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts warn the country is losing the \u201cwar on nicotine\u201d in much the same way as it lost the war on drugs, as illicit trade surges and the legal market collapses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Documents obtained by Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph<\/a>, under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that pharmacists submitted an average of just 5,932 supply notifications per month between October 2024 and April 2025 under the Therapeutic Goods Administration\u2019s (TGA) SAS C S3 system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 million black market vapes sold per month<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the TGA estimates that more than 10 million vapes are sold each month on the black market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the Albanese government\u2019s efforts to control supply by limiting sales to pharmacies without a prescription, one of the country\u2019s largest legal suppliers, Philip Morris, has confirmed it will withdraw from the Australian market on July 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter to pharmacies, the company said it was \u201csimply not possible\u201d to meet the TGA\u2019s new technical standards within the deadline and warned the move would \u201cpush smokers back to cigarettes and hand the market to black market traders.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The decision is a major blow to the government\u2019s approach, which relies entirely on pharmacies to supply legal vapes under strict conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts say the government\u2019s current model is flawed. In a recent article<\/a> in the Harm Reduction Journal, criminologist James Martin and epidemiologist Edward Jegasothy wrote: \u201cAustralia\u2019s current strategy may be creating more harm than it mitigates, mirroring many of the unintended consequences historically associated with drug prohibition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Martin added: \u201cLook at the war on drugs; there is something worse than the tobacco industry, and that\u2019s the black market.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He noted that: \u201cVaping isn\u2019t risk-free, but we need to consider its risk vis-a-vis the risks of smoking,\u201d and \u201cHere we have a harm reduction product that many smokers prefer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between 2019 and 2023, Australia saw its steepest drop in smoking rates in 30 years, with rates falling from 11.6 per cent to 8.8 per cent – a period that also saw a significant rise in vape use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Dr Becky Freeman from the University of Sydney said she didn\u2019t agree with calls to reduce taxes to boost legal trade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said: \u201cFreezing tobacco taxes at the moment makes sense \u2013 until we get enforcement sorted out there\u2019s no point in putting in extra taxes. But that\u2019s quite different from rolling it back. They are not a consumer good.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe made this mistake with tobacco products, why would we turn around and do the same thing with vapes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legal sales \u2018negligible\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Legal vape sales in Australia remain negligible. While there are over 5,900 pharmacies across the country, only about 700 are participating in the scheme each month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many report extremely low sales. Seaforth pharmacist John Than told The Daily Telegraph: \u201cWe\u2019ve sold one vape \u2026 one vape in under nine months. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEither people don\u2019t know they can buy vapes from pharmacies, or they are choosing to buy them illegally elsewhere. Either way, this shows that the new laws are not working.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these warnings, Health Minister Mark Butler insists that the strategy is succeeding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAustralia\u2019s world-leading vaping legislations are working,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve choked off supply at the border, seizing more than eight million vapes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

However, critics point to the lack of any feasibility study, cost-benefit analysis, or enforcement plan before the pharmacy-only model was launched – something the Department of Health confirmed. An independent review of the scheme is not scheduled until July 2027.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia\u2019s strict vaping laws appear to be backfiring, with black market sales now outstripping legal ones by almost 1,700 to one.\u00a0 Experts warn the country is losing the \u201cwar on nicotine\u201d in much the same way as it lost the war on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":990002,"featured_media":25107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[257,258],"tags":[27,344,186],"slider":[],"class_list":["post-25106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-legislation","tag-article","tag-australia","tag-nicotine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/990002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25106"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25114,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25106\/revisions\/25114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25106"},{"taxonomy":"slider","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clearingtheair.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/slider?post=25106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}