Tasmanian business bodies call for trial of vape sales in retail outlets to bring down smoking rates

Tasmania’s peak business bodies want select retail outlets to be given permission to sell vaping products over the counter as part of a trial they say will help slash smoking rates. HAVE YOUR SAY >>

The state’s peak business bodies are pushing for vaping devices to be sold over the counter in select retail outlets, claiming the proposed trial would offer Tasmanians a supposedly less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes and help bring down sky-high smoking rates.

The Tasmanian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (TCCI) and the Tasmanian Small Business Council’s (TSBC) joint call came as new research from the Australian National University (ANU), released on Thursday, found the use of nicotine e-cigarettes increased the risk of adverse health outcomes including addiction, taking up smoking, poisoning, seizures, trauma and burns and lung injury.

Girl smokes vape.

Tasmania has the third-highest smoking rate in the country, with 12.8 per cent of people aged 14 and over identifying as daily smokers.

According to data from Victoria University’s Mitchell Institute, 33 per cent of adults in the Bridgewater-Gagebrook area smoke regularly – the highest rate of any area in Australia.

TCCI chief executive Michael Bailey said he wanted a limited number of Tasmanian retailers to be given permission to stock e-cigarettes in a trial that would enable them to sell the products to customers over the counter.

TCCI CEO Michael Bailey.

“In our view, it remains absurd that the less harmful, smoking cessation aids aren’t available on the corner-store shelf next to cigarettes,” Mr Bailey said.

TSBC chief executive Robert Mallett said Tasmania desperately needed to reduce its smoking rates.

“We need to rethink our approach to smoking reduction and there is considerable evidence internationally that nicotine vaping and e-cigarettes are not only significantly less harmful than traditional cigarettes, but that they are also very effective smoking cessation aids,” he said.

Tasmanian Small Busniess Council CEO Robert Mallett. Picture: Chris Kidd

But ANU researchers say they have found “limited evidence that nicotine e-cigarettes were effective to help people quit smoking in the clinical setting”.

“The evidence shows e-cigarettes carry significant harms,” lead author Professor Emily Banks, of the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, said.

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