James Campbell: The real issue with Australia’s war on vapes

In the 12 months since it became illegal to sell vapes, research suggests the Albanese government’s approach has “demonstrably failed” in its main goal.

A year ago, Health Minister Mark Butler was busy doing the rounds of television and radio studios boasting about how his ban on recreational vapes was paying dividends.

“Already we’ve had businesses contacting us, telling us that they understand that they’re having to take the vapes off their shelves,” he told Triple J on July 4, three days after his ban on “non-therapeutic” vapes came into effect.

To be sure, the ban on importation of these vapes had already been in place since January, and clearly they were still freely available, but the minister had heard “stores were finding it harder and harder to get their hands on” them.

Health Minister Mark Butler has boasted about how his ban on recreational vapes was paying dividends. Picture: Martin Ollman

So how are things going 18 months on from the importation ban and a year since it became illegal to sell them? Well if you listen to the Minister it’s all been a great success.

In May, he seized on a Cancer Council survey that found, since 2023, the rate of vaping among 18 to 24-year-olds has fallen from 20 per cent to 18 per cent, declaring to The Sydney Morning Herald “our world-leading vaping reforms are working”.

That survey also found the rate of vaping of those aged between 14 and 17 dropped from 17 per cent to 15.5 per cent in the last quarter of 2024.

That same news report suggested the reason why this may be so.

For, while vapes have not disappeared from the shelves as Butler hoped they would, the paper reported the cost of the “fruity-flavoured puffers illegally sold at tobacco and corner stores have risen from about $25 to between $50 and $60 since the middle of last year”.

So all good then right?

Vapes have not disappeared from the shelves as Butler hoped they would. Picture: Richard Dobson

Err, not quite. Not if the recent Roy Morgan survey of Australian nicotine consumption is anywhere near the mark.

Headed, “Smoking increases among young Australians since ‘vaping sales ban’ in 2024”, the accompanying press release quoted Morgan’s CEO Michelle Levine saying their research showed the vaping ban had “demonstrably failed to reduce overall rates of smoking and vaping – which are higher now than in the second half last year”.

This increase, she said, was being driven by 18 to 24-year-olds, whose overall smoking and vaping rate had increased by 2.9 per cent since last September. The bulk of that increase, you won’t be surprised to learn, was in the consumption of factory-made cigarettes.

In other words, it would appear – if Morgan is right – the main effect of the Butler ban has been to raise the price of vapes to the point where they are now more expensive than cigarettes.

By which I don’t mean the $50 you’ll pay at Coles Express but the real-world price of cigarettes at the dodgy shop around the corner, which last time I looked was about $15.

And the consequence of that has been to increase the number of young people smoking. Which is likely to mean more of them will die early.

Because it does well to remember the evidence on the difference between the damage to health from smoking and vaping is clear.

To quote the eighth – eighth! – report from Public Health England “in the short and medium term, vaping poses a small fraction of the risks of smoking”.

And not just to those who vape, it should be pointed out, as the report states there is “no significant increase of toxicant biomarkers after short-term second-hand exposure to vaping among people who do not smoke or vape”. Of course, we will have to wait and see if Morgan’s increase in smoking rates among the young in the past year continues or is borne out by other research.

In his recent speech praising Labor great John Curtin, Albo pointed to the wartime PM’s belief in Australia as a “social laboratory”.

In his war on vapes, the Prime Minister and his Health Minister are continuing that tradition.

And luckily for social scientists interested in the results, in New Zealand we have a control group.

The Kiwis have decided instead of bans and enforcement, they will adopt a harm-minimisation model.

It’s early days but, on the available evidence, it would appear to be working better than ours. For while, over the past decade, Australia’s smoking rates declined, they have declined faster in New Zealand where vapes are freely available.

According to a study published earlier this year, between 2016 and 2023, the adult daily smoking rate in New Zealand fell on average by 10 per cent per year compared to Australia, where it fell by 5 per cent. The Kiwi daily smoking rate dropped from 14.5 per cent to 6.8 per cent, while ours fell from 12.2 per cent to 8.3 per cent.

On the face of it, the only real question about our approach to vapes is at what point we are going to admit are on the wrong tram.

Originally published as James Campbell: The real issue with Australia’s war on vapes