Black market vape supply dwindling across Sydney as raids, tough laws hit suppliers

A Daily Telegraph investigation – which involved visiting 43 tobacconists and general stores around the city centre this week – found one third of the stores continue to sell e-cigarettes.

Stubborn store owners are still cashing in on the crime-linked black market for vapes, defying dwindling supplies and harsh new laws threatening up to $2.2 million in fines or seven years in jail.

A Daily Telegraph investigation — which involved visiting 43 tobacconists and general stores in the city centre this week — found 15 shops continued to sell e-cigarettes, more than a fortnight after strict new laws came into effect on July 1.

Federal Health Minister Mark Butler conceded the fight against black market vapes was ongoing, saying: “Some stores may still be selling illegal vapes, and my message to them is we are deadly serious about enforcing this ban.”

A range of new laws have been introduced in 2024 in a bid to crack down on illegal vapes, beginning with a ban on all disposable vapes being imported into the country from January 1.

From July 1, new laws regulated nicotine vapes as therapeutic goods which could be obtained only at pharmacies with a prescription.

Tough new laws and a steady stream of raids is reducing supply of vapes — but they’re still being sold at shops in Sydney.

The requirement for a prescription will be dropped from October, when anyone over 18 will be able to buy a nicotine vape from a pharmacy.

The start of this month also brought in heavy-handed penalties for the unlawful importation, manufacture, advertising, supply and commercial possession of vapes, with a maximum penalty of seven years in jail or a $2.2m fine for an individual.

Vapes can now be bought legally at pharmacies, with a prescription. Picture: Liam Kidston

Since the new laws came in, NSW health authorities have conducted at least 73 raids on retailers, leading to almost 12,500 vapes being seized, as well as nearly 2000 nicotine pouches and 800,000 black-market cigarettes.

The Australian Border Force (ABF) and Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) have now seized 3.5 million e-cigarettes this year, with the ABF netting 2.8m through more than 13,000 detections at the border since January 1, with 177,120 vapes seized coming into Sydney in May alone.

“We know the same organised crime syndicates that are profiting from illicit tobacco are also expanding into the vaping product trade,” an ABF spokeswoman said.

“These syndicates use the profits of their illicit activities to fund their other criminal ventures, so we will target all streams of their business model, including vapes, by disrupting their supply at the border.”

A store owner at a business currently selling vapes said the penalties in place now were enough of a deterrent that they wouldn’t order another batch.

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