NSW smoking ban as misguided as it is useless

IT’S cruel to demand our most vulnerable citizens give up a legal drug that could be delivered to them safely and cheaply, writes Miranda Devine.

OF all the crackpot health-nazi proposals, the ban on electronic cigarettes is up there with the dumbest.

For nicotine addicts, surely it is better to ingest the drug as a vapor than inhale smoke containing 7000 harmful chemicals and toxins.

But no, the moral police, the authoritarian nicotine prohibitionists, have decided against all the available scientific evidence and best practice overseas, that they can just force Australia to go cold turkey.

And this week Brad Hazzard, the NSW health minister, is expected to take to Cabinet a proposal to ban e-cigarettes, kowtowing to a powerful lobby that is all about ego, rather than the best interests of smokers who want to kick the habit.

So NSW will become one of the only places in the OECD effectively to ban vaping, which is the name for smoking an e-cigarette.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard will take a bill to Cabinet that goes against all other OECD nations. (Pic: Daniel Munoz)

You use a cigar-like contraption to heat a nicotine-based liquid that creates a little puff of water vapour that gives smokers the familiar ritual of smoking without the harmful effects, or the stink.

It’s a great way to wean yourself off cigarettes, says Dr Colin Mendelsohn, a tobacco treatment specialist whose actual job is to help smokers stop smoking.

Unlike Brad Hazzard he knows what he’s talking about.

As associate professor at the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of NSW and chairman of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association, he has been perplexed to find himself fighting to allow his patients to switch from death-dealing cigarettes to harmless vaping.

“Smoking rates have not declined in Australia for three years,” he says, while there has been no such stagnation in countries that allow vaping.

He points out that the smoking demographic is largely poor, disadvantaged or mentally ill.

The proposed NSW ban targets those who stand to lose the most. (Pic: supplied)

Clearly heavy taxation hasn’t changed their habits. It is cruel to demand our most vulnerable citizens give up a perfectly legal drug that could be delivered to them safely and far more cheaply.

He calls the objection to e-cigarettes from the powerful anti-tobacco lobby a “moral crusade” rather than evidence-based science.

And he says nicotine is a relatively harmless drug, which can have beneficial effects for concentration and memory, particularly with schizophrenics.

Why is it that the same health professionals who want to ban vaping urge harm minimisation and decriminalisation when it comes to illegal drugs?

It’s nuts that we are legalising medical cannabis but trying to criminalise legal nicotine.

Nicotine has a soothing effect on society, too. You could argue that road rage has increased in inverse proportion to smoking rates. It used to be that tetchy drivers could light up a ciggie to ease their frustration. Now they just blow up.

Let’s hope the Cabinet sees sense.