Health Minister set to announce massive crackdown on vapers in federal budget

The Health Minister is set to announce a massive crackdown on e-cigarettes saying thousands of teenagers have “gone nuts”.

EXCLUSIVE

A crackdown on the importation of vapes, plain-packaging and a ban on flavours will be announced in the May budget to tackle the health emergency of thousands of teenagers who have “gone nuts” for e-cigarettes.

Slamming as “utter horse-s**t” the claim that most vapes being sold to kids do not contain nicotine, Health Minister Mark Butler said the “insidious” product was creating a new generation of addicts.

Warning it was the “biggest behavioural issue” in schools, he warned that the strongest possible action had to be taken.

“The school authorities are off their brain,’’ Mr Butler told news.com.au. “It’s not just high schools. It is primary school.

“So I am intending to take some pretty substantial action.”

Mr Butler said it was “horse-s**t” to suggest that vapes that included nicotine were not being sold to kids.

Health Minister Mark Butler said the ‘insidious’ product was creating a new generation of addicts. Picture: AFP

“These stores are operating under the fiction that what they’re selling is non-nicotine vapes. And we know that’s utter horse-s**t,’’ he said.

“Every time anyone does a random test of these things they’re found to be overwhelmingly nicotine vapes, and you have to ask the question, why wouldn’t someone want to use a vape that didn’t have nicotine in them? I mean, that’s the whole purpose of them is to get that hit.”

Under current laws vapes with nicotine can only be bought with a prescription from a chemist. But that hasn’t stopped thousands of convenience stores and online providers selling to kids.

Mr Butler said the exact nature of the crackdown will be announced in coming weeks.

“We prohibit the manufacture, we prohibit the import, that the only way vapes can come into the country is through a therapeutic pathway, which will be managed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

“We’ve now got the TGA report. There’s a sort of broader question about the degree to which you really try and stamp out non therapeutic use of vapes.

“We would have to take some action at the border, which Greg Hunt tried to do to his credit, but he then got rolled within I think 10 days by his party room.

“The TGA has recommended pharmaceutical packaging. So not these pretty ones with pink unicorns on them. It would be plain flavoured.”

Anthony Albanese and Mark Butler (right) in Hobart. Picture: Chris Kidd

Mr Butler conceded that part of the challenge was getting the regulatory framework right and the second issue was enforcing it.

“Because they’re not coming in as shipping containers labelled vapes,’’ he said. “They’re coming in, in quite small boxes, which is really where the states and territories come in.

“I think what’s been happening is the Commonwealth has been saying we can’t do anything about the fact that this has just gone nuts because it’s a state and territory policing issue.

“Then the states and territories say why should we divert resources from catching robbers and murderers into vapes when the borders are just completely open?

“So we’ve got to take action on the border. States have to take some action around policing and retail arrangements. I think there’s the appetite to do that.

“Obviously Health Ministers have been talking about this pretty furiously for the last few months. I don’t pretend it’s gonna be easy, because this thing has just absolutely flourished – particularly during Covid.

“I’m not sure whether they were connected, but really in the last three years it’s all exploded.”

Mr Butler said the industry was clearly marketing vapes at children.

“This is such an insidious product that the tobacco industry has deliberately designed to create a new generation of nicotine addicts,’’ he said.

“One-in-70 people in their 50s have vaped. One-in-four people my daughter’s age has vaped.

“One-in-six high school students has vaped a young person’s product or deliberately targeted at them. They’re three times more likely to take up cigarettes, or vapes.

“And it completely explains why under 25s is the only cohort in the population where smoking rates are increasing. That’s exactly what the industry wanted.”