‘Life is short and shorter for smokers. Just legalise vaping’

THE government report into e-cigarettes took almost a year, ran to 168 pages and recommended changing nothing. Andrew Laming’s dissenting report took just two sentences.

THE chairman of a Federal inquiry into vaping and e-cigarettes in Australia has delivered his committee’s report into the subject with a stunning sting in the tail: he doesn’t agree with it.

The parliamentary health inquiry spent almost a year and thousands of hours inquiring into Australia’s approach to e-cigarettes, vaping, and whether they can reduce smoking rates to come up with ... nothing new.

It recommended the status quo remain: nicotine vaping ban staying in place, and more time be spent on scientific research.

But three dissenters called for vaping to be legalised, with inquiry chairman Trent Zimmerman chairman saying e-cigarettes could save thousands of lives if long-term smokers turn to them as an alternative to tobacco.

Tabling the report, Mr Zimmerman today told federal Parliament he found himself in the “unusual position” of having to co-author a dissenting report with committee member Tim Wilson, calling for nicotine vaping to be legalised to reduce stalled stop-smoking rates.

“Approximately 2.4 million Australians smoke cigarettes daily and it has been estimated that two out of every three smokers will die prematurely due to their smoking,” Mr Zimmerman said.

“Given these stark figures, reducing the number of Australians who smoke is one of the

nation’s most important public health objectives.”

But he was one of just three dissenting voices against a parliamentary health committee majority who oppose legalising nicotine e-cigarettes.

MP Andrew Laming also disagreed with the committee.

While the committee’s report ran to almost 200 pages, Laming’s dissenting report was just two sentences: “Life is short and shorter for smokers. Just legalise vaping”.

@AndrewLamingMP delivers his dissenting report. What a legend. pic.twitter.com/elxqsj9wUB

— Simon Breheny (@Simon_Breheny) March 28, 2018

Mr Zimmerman said the committee was presented with “starkly conflicting views” in their near year-long investigation of e-cigarettes.

“While the evidence base regarding e-cigarettes is still emerging there are clear indications that e-cigarettes are significantly less harmful to human health than smoking tobacco cigarettes,” Mr Zimmerman said.

“If long-term smokers who have been unable to quit smoking tobacco cigarettes switch to e-cigarettes, thousands of lives could be saved.”

But Labor MP Steve Georganas said better evidence is needed before taking that step.

He said while there was evidence that hardcore smokers could switch to less-harmful “vaping” the health impact needed clarification.

“Until science experts say there is no impact on health we should be very cautious in this area,” he said.

The committee recommended the National Health and Medical Research Council fund an independent and comprehensive review of the health impacts of e-cigarettes, which is updated two-yearly to take into account new research.

‘MISSED OPPORTUNITY TO SAVE 500,000 LIVES’

Australia’s 3 million smokers will be still breaking the law if they choose to use a nicotine e-cigarette product proven to be less harmful than the legal cigarettes that health experts hate so much, and that our government taxes so heavily, vaping supporters say.

The e-cigarette report had missed golden opportunity to save 500,000 Australian lives by giving smokers access to a far less harmful alternative, according to the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (ATHRA).

Vaping supporters say the e-cigarettes help smokers quit. Picture: Mark Cranitch.

“The Committee had a golden opportunity to bring Australia into line with most other developed countries which have accepted vaping as an effective substitute for deadly tobacco cigarettes. Vaping has helped millions of smokers to quit who were unable to do so with conventional treatments,” ATHRA chairman Dr Mendelsohn said.

“The majority report was selective in the evidence it used to consider the harm reduction merits of vaping, and did not challenge the status quo on tobacco control policy and regulation. That is very disappointing.”

SMOKING RATES AREN’T FALLING

Meanwhile ATHRA board member Dr Alex Wodak said it was clear increased tobacco taxes and plain packaging are not enough.

Dr Wodak, who is also Emeritus Consultant at St Vincent’s Hospital Alcohol and Drug Service in Sydney, said smoking rates weren’t falling in Australia, “as they are in Britain where nicotine vaping is officially embraced as a safer alternative to cigarettes. While other countries overtake us, we miss our targets under the Australia’s National Tobacco Strategy.”

But the report revealed both the Australian Medical Association and the Department of Health remain totally opposed to nicotine vaping.

“We must not allow e-cigarettes to become a socially acceptable alternative to smoking,” the AMA said, while the Department of Health advised that “there is evidence that e-cigarettes are harmful”.

Internationally, e-cigarettes are legal in the European Union, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and the US, will be legalised in New Zealand, and are about to be regulated in Canada.

‘NOT ON MY WATCH’

The committee’s findings would seemingly never have made a difference to the legality of nicotine vaping, given that late last year Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt declared lifting the ban on e-cigarettes would “not going to be happening on his watch”.

The committee also examined, but seemed to discount the findings of a UK study urging smokers to embrace vaping as a quit smoking tool after it found e-cigarettes were 95 per cent less harmful than smoking.

Public Health England, (PHU) which commissioned the review of evidence on e-cigarettes, aid e-cigarettes could already be helping some 20,000 UK smokers a year quit tobacco — and possibly many more.

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Victoria's vaping protests a government bill that would place e-cigarettes in the same category as normal cigarettes. Picture: Aaron Francis/The Australian

The PHU report found that vaping — legal in the UK as well as the EU, the US, and soon Canada and New Zealand — posed “only a small fraction” of the risks of smoking and switching completely from smoking to vaping conveyed substantial health benefits.

It further found that there was no harm in passive vaping.

Currently in Australia, it’s legal to use electronic cigarettes that don’t have nicotine, but illegal to use the ones that do.

It’s illegal to possess the liquid nicotine used in vapes. The only exception for liquid nicotine is if you have a prescription from the doctor.

Which, vaping supporters say, is how some of the 250,000 vampers (1.2 per cent of the population) in Australia, according to the 2016 National Drug Strategy household survey, are getting their fix.

WHAT THE VAPERS SAID

The inquiry heard from a number of vapers about how their health had improved since switching from smoking cigarettes to vaping.

“Since switching … I no longer have coughing fits, trouble breathing, my blood pressure has decreased dramatically and I no longer have sleepless nights worrying about not living to see my daughters grow up,” was among the testimonials.

Others commented on the bitter irony of ordering nicotine online from overseas suppliers, despite knowing it is unlawful to do so, when cigarettes — which the government wants them to quit — can be legally bought in any convenience store.

“So, on the one hand you have a government which allows the sale of cigarettes which contains all these chemicals but won’t allow people who want to quit smoking cigarettes to have nicotine in their E-liquid,” said one vaper.

Ms Angela Gordon described it as being “forced … to choose between the law and our own life”.