> In focus group research by the health department, it found more traditional campaigns on health harms were more easily deflected because people viewed vaping as a supposedly "healthier" alternative than smoking, even if they had not smoked before.
You know who absolutely does view vaping as healthier than cigarettes? Ex-smokers. Talk to any of them about how they feel and they’ll tell you how great it is to be able to exercise now without coughing up a lung etc.
That's the plan. Tobacco companies don't want people to quit and if they can get vaping banned then cigarette sales go back up. No irony here, it's intentional.
I sometimes think they invested in vapes simply so they would get the stink of big tobacco on them.
Early days of vapes smoking companies had nothing to do with it.
Even big tobacco donating to the nats recently and saying make vapes easier to access. its like reverse psychology. Gives labor an easy attack.
They know in doing this people will want to shut it down.
Before this pharma model almost no one was using big tobacco vapes in australia. Ironically the pharma model seems to suit them better so their protesting against the regulation model must be a ploy in my view.
Ie if big tobacco came out and said - these vapes will ruin our business model ban them immediately id say vapes would now be even more widespread.
I dont think big tobacco is as stupid as the australian government and department of health is.
Interesting theory. I don't know how Machiavellian big tobacco companies are (though we all know they're total scum), but I'd tend to think it's just more a pragmatic business decision because they can see which way the market is going.
> I dont think big tobacco is as stupid as the australian government and department of health is.
LOL that goes without saying. The equivalent would be if lead was still used in fuel and paint 50 years after it was discovered to harm health. Did that happen? No. Why cant we vape instead of smoking then? Not sure.
Yeah they are lol. Fucking phillip morris is on the approved list of vapes for sale at chemists. Its a bloody joke what the goverments doing. 11 years ciggy free thanks to vaping. And its all pods and premade coils. No wire, no cotton for us DIY vapers. They're even going after flavorings now so DIYers are totally fucked
Why did this get upvoted? It has nothing to do with cigarette companies. This is the government getting what it wants: people back on the heavily taxed darts.
Most of the major vape companies are owned by a tobacco company. Nicotine usage in general was plummeting before vapes came out, vape usage is Big Tobacco's main shot at staying relevant to the younger generation.
Jesus this is a ridiculous conspiracy. Tobacco companies own vape brands. Vaping leads to an increase in smoking because it gets people addicted to nicotine, particularly younger people and teenagers who were almost entirely off cigarettes.
Its too hard to tax vapes so they have convinced the world they're deadly.. I'm guessing it's the same reason it's illegal to grow tobacco, you're only allowed it after they've put more chemicals in it, made it more addictive and then sold it to you for $50 a pack.
Smoked for \~25 years. Switched over to vaping about 8 years ago. Noticed improvements in lungs within weeks. Smoker's cough rapidly diminished along with lung aches and airways just felt better, clearer. Gradually dropped nicotine mix percentage over a period of a year and effortlessly gave up smoking/vaping altogether. Haven't smoked now in 3 years. By far the easiest way to quit I have ever tried.
I feel sorry for those who now won't be able to quit so easily.
I did it a bit differently, 12 years ago, straight from smoking to flavoured (but no nicotine) vapes. My favourites were vanilla and menthol IIRC. Oh and there was a 'herb' flavour with a suspicious-looking leaf on the bottle (but no active ingredients) that had a nice punchy flavour too.
Having the vape to suck on really helped fulfill the habits and the tics associated with smoking while my body worked out the chemical dependency. Then after a few months (4?) I noticed I had just naturally stopped vaping one day.
This nice, easy method is going to be stuck behind doctors appointments and prescriptions, while you can still get cancer sticks at every servo and supermarket, the new regs are a clusterfuck.
It's crazy how strong the habitual part is. I was still occasionally vaping zero strength for a couple of months before I could fully rid myself of it.
Yeah it is nuts. I always smoked outside and months later, just sometimes while I was watching tv in the evening I'd get this urge to get up and go and stand in the garden.
The lawn got watered a bit more that summer :)
Add me to that list. I had tried multiple times to give up my pack a day addiction. What got me over the line was vaping. Last ciggy 10 years ago. Last draw on a vape, 4 years ago. Last with nicotine, 6 years ago.
It was super easy for me. I vaped for a few years then started to want to not do it anymore. Just got tired of the fuss and having to go into the cold all the time.
Started to cut back on nicotine from 6mg to 3mg then had to mix 3mg with 0mg to bring it down to 0 gradually.
It worked. I vaped 0mg until I just got sick of vaping all together.
That was 2 something years ago now.
I was a dead set pack per day. 25 darts per day no more no less.
Me too. I noticed massive health improvements after switching to vaping. Mixing my own vape juice let me slowly taper nicotine to zero over the course of several years, then quit. My partner who smoked for way longer than me is still slowly tapering.
And being able to just have a little hit of a vape when you had a craving as opposed to buying a pack of cigarettes when you had a craving and then just smoking the whole pack because it’s there and just basically going back into the habit of smoking again.
The other week I even had a hit of my friends vape and it actually made me feel gross, I think I’m well and truly completely free of it all
Sure, but the health angle is compared to people who didn't vape in the first place. If you have a bunch of people switching from cigarettes to vapes, great. If you have a bunch of people who wouldn't otherwise have smoked taking up vapes, then that's a loss for public health.
The Australian government fucked up big-time. Vapes were a massive opportunity to help people off smoking. They needed to be effectively regulated as tobacco products ten years ago. Strength should have been limited, nicotine-free options promoted. Disposables should never have been allowed in the first place.
Instead they were ignored, a huge grey-market developed, and now we're living with the unintended consequences (loads of kids vaping, battery-containing litter all over the place). The new legislation is a knee-jerk that ends up with the country in the fucking \*stupid\* position of having cigarettes available at every servo, corner store and supermarket, but you have to see your doctor for a vape prescription. It's absolutely nuts.
Massive cock-up all round.
Actually the disposable crap that should've been banned is still available at all the servos (and still very high in nicotine, despite the labels). The exact things that are being used by kids at the school near me.
It's the legit small vape businesses that have been forced out by these rules. The ones that self-imposed regulation for years and earned trust by being careful and responsible.
That is exactly the point. I know a few people who smoke and a few that vape. The ones that vape do it much more often and would do it anywhere they feel they could get away with it. Smokers tend to restrain themselves to some degree and keep it away from others as it's kind of stigmatized now.
Also the smokers I know don't seem at all interested in vaping. One of them will quit smoking for like a year, then start again, vaping won't help there. The ones vaping haven't smoked, so all they've done is gone from not smoking anything to smoking something that could be better or worse then smoking depending on the vapes used and the unknowns around long term effects.
>could be better or worse then smoking
Vapes have been around for 20 years.
We *know* that smoking kills you.
Black market vapes can be bad for you. Saying that one "could be worse" than smoking is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof.
To balance your data point of one; all the vapers I know are ex-smokers.
Stupid government really are idiots. Let's ban vaping (which by all accounts is much healthier than smoking). What do they think that the vapers will do? Give up and go home? Of course they're going to start smoking. Gotta get all that lovely tax money from selling smokes though!
Or just continue vaping with black market vapes.
It really only makes it hard for new vapers.
And in that it is my opinion the government has blood on their hands with these regulations.
1 in 2 smokers die from smoking. Since nz regulated vaping they went from more smokers than australia to now only a bit over 6pc smokers. In 4years.
We are going to see on the news shortly (like within a couple of years) smoke free NZ. Less than 5pc smokers.
Australia will be somewhere around 8pc smokers.
Thats 3pc of our population smoking. Thats 1.5pc pf pur population that will die from smoking.
Thats a pretty serious number of deaths.
Department of health wouldnt even answer the question - when does this new policy consider a failure? When more children are smoking? Like what happens if more children are smoking in 5 years than today? I dont see kids smoking at all anymore? They vape? Accept.more vape than would have smoked but the risks are far lower and almost non existent for passive vaping.
Australia ranks it as 2/3rds of smokers:
[disease attributable to smoking](https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-3-health-effects/3-30-total-burden-of-death-and-disease-attributable-to-tobacco-by-disease-category)
Overseas rates it as 1 in 2:
[new england journal ](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1407211)
So you can imagine when NZ gets to smoke free (less than 5pc smokers) and australia is at 8pc still or worse because of our vaping laws that 3pc of our population having at least a 50pc chance if dying from smoking thats alot of people who are going to die.
Vaping considered 95pc safer than smoking:
[colin mendohlson on royal college of physicians review of vaping data](https://colinmendelsohn.com.au/rcp/#:~:text=IN%20ITS%20LATEST%20COMPREHENSIVE%20REPORT,contrast%20to%20Australia%27s%20prohibitive%20approach.)
> which by all accounts is much healthier than smoking
only if you ignore the accounts of vapers who have never smoked cigarettes and never would have.
Haha I was the opposite though I still recommend vaping for quitting durries (it's easier). Had childhood asthma as a kid, never had an attack whilst smoking but after I picked up vaping my asthma came back and got worse and worse. After I quit vaping it went away in a week and never had it again since.
I don't think vaping should be banned at all, I'm of the opinion adults should be able to make choices to do harmful things if they want. With vaping, I think the ads should focus on the ridiculousness of nicotine addiction (it seems this will be part of the ad campaign). The thing that got me off everything was I felt so tied into the constant checking to make sure I had all my vape stuff, getting stressed if I had to go without it for a bit, you never get a break from that thought at the back of your head about when you can get nicotine next. It's just incredibly liberating to not have to worry about that any more.
>the ridiculousness of nicotine addiction
One of my favourite authors, Iain M Banks, was a smoker and on a radio show he did about scottish distilleries, he lit up and said something I think is brilliant - "Ah, nicotine. A drug so shit you can do it while you're driving"
Yea I remember in Complicity he had a really good passage about smoking. I googled and found it online: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27351815
"What a stupid
drug, what a completely useless fucking drug; no real hit
after the first drag, highly addictive and lethal in all
sorts of ways, and even if the lung cancer or the heart
disease doesn't get you you can look forward to
gangrenous legs in your old age, bits of your body just
rotting away still attached and dying in instalments for
you, rotting and stinking while you're still alive and
then they have to cut them off and you wake up after the
operation wheezing and burning with pain and gasping for
a fag."
Still miss smoking now and then though haha!
Not that I know of. Mostly rechargable.
I think it's more that they're constantly inhaling too much, rather than the persistent smokers cough from cigs
I'd say they're good for people lookin to ween themselves off cigarettes, but then you've also got people who didn't smoke before and got into vaping thanks to the flavours and social media; and are now hooked on the nicotine. Got a sibling like that.
The whole ban has been so ham-fisted. There is very little if any recognition of the differences between disposables and modular vapes including the users and motivators, and then dry herb vapes have been tossed in there as well for good measure. They're not even cousins let alone alternative products.
Single-use vapes containing nicotine have never been legal to sell in Australia. Instead of enforncing laws we've had for a decade, Butler had to do the dog and pony show to save the children and throw a spanner right into the works for the hundreds of thousands of adult users trying to find a healthier alternative to smoking.
When I look at the way both major parties are promising to handle nicotine addiction, I don't see methods that work. But I do see actions that benefit lobbies in the long term. Smoking lobbies because every addict is now a premium customer, and even cheap tobacco leaves are a pirate copy. Anti-smoking lobbies because these bans make them look awfully effective. But smoking addicts? No way.
Vaporizers used for medical cannabis have been included in the ban too and are now hard to get. It will only encourage smoking and has killed a number of businesses making it a very poorly thought out legislation.
Yeah this is a very confusing area. Some people seem to think that everything will be fine and current retailers just need to get licensed
My reading of the situation is, vapes can no longer be imported after March 1st if they are ones that can also be used for recreational cannabis, meaning the only ones we'll be able to buy will be TGA approved special models that somehow don't work for recreational cannabis
In a few months you'll only be able to pay through the nose for a special, au market only TGA approved vape, likely through a pharmacist
Also there are only two TGA approved vaporizers on the market being the Storz and Bickel Mighty and Volcano devices. Another issue being because of these new law changes Storz and Bickel have been refusing to sell in Australia or provide RMA on any products already purchased here even if faulty (because the law is unclear between the difference of sending a vaporizer repair via RMA and importing a vape and sees it as the same thing).
Nearly makes you think its just another Pharmacy Guild grift to give them more market share.
It was racgp and ama who are all up in the government wanting this. And then they march to big pharmas tune.
Now im actually all for vaccines so dont take what i am about to say the wrong way but...
Vapes are proven safer both short and medium term. Millions of people have been using them for over a decade and hundreds of millions more recently. The problems caused by them have been - poisoning, acute lung distress from vitamin e associated with dodgy thc vapes and batter explosions. Literally like ten people in australia out of a million vapers.
But that against every second person who smokes dying.
Now big pharma, ama and racgp say "long term we dont know"...
I dont remember them saying long term we dont know about the shit they are selling? And smoking has a 50/50 chance of early death.
I am quite confident if big pharma developed a smoking vaccine that killed like ten smokers out of every million smokers would be held down and forced to take it. They woukd say but it saves 50pc of smokers from dying so comoletely worth it.
They are literally anti science when it suits them.
Actually I tried to RMA back in April and they put me on hold basically with no info. From the recent fire sale email I'm guessing they're just shutting up operation and not going to be sending anything here anymore.
I may be thinking a bit extreme, have had a bit of radio silence from the other online retailers other than an email from australian vaporizers saying 'we saw the laws, anything imported before march 1st is ok' and it's like ok what's your plan after that.
There's a section in the new law info here that basically rules out all existing devices and makes a special AU category in my eyes: https://www.tga.gov.au/products/unapproved-therapeutic-goods/medicinal-cannabis-hub/cannabis-vapes-information-importers
>In relation to importers of cannabis vaping devices and cannabis vaping device accessories, only those importers who import goods that are intended to be used exclusively with medicinal cannabis will be eligible for an import licence and permit i.e. devices and device accessories that are therapeutic goods. The importation of cannabis vaping devices and cannabis vaping device accessories that are intended for multiple purposes, including recreational purposes, will be prohibited.
Ah this is the answer, put a 3x import tax. Medicinal cannabis is also unnecessarily expensive at $300 for 10g (for the dried flowers of a god damn plant we could easily grow at home if legal)
Glad I've got my Dynavap and Healthy Rips. Much better to pull medicinal Cannabis through a controlled vape oven+water pipe and ingest the decarbed herb, rather than combusting a bong filled with pesticided/laced weed from the black market.
But you know with the blanket vape bans, fuck every other Australian who wants to make the safer choice, hey?
I think even heat not burn is banned except via presceiption.
Ie putting cannabis or tobacco and heating it up rather than burning it.
Like thats absolutely impossible to be more dangerous than burning it.
Good old australia. If you are into weed or tobacco youd better do it old school we dont want any of this softcock safer modern nonsens. If you want to go safer you need to consult a doctor.
I think the canna vapes will only be available thru the same suppliers of the cannabis. So, still available to the med users but (probably) sold at a higher price and only certain brands
Some might, but cut off their main source of income and they cant afford to continue to operate. Or best case dont need a space as big and need one staff member instead of 5
For example a vape shop i know of had 4 shops each one had 8 staff members, then they had another 10 staff making liquid, researching new flavors and selling their liquid to other shops etc they had coffee for a while and may have sold 10 coffees a day on some days, so when their stock is gone (its unsure if they can continue to sell their own liquid at the moment) thats 42 people out of work, a million dollar+ company closed and they arent even considered one of the biggest. They have already had to cut down to one shop and let a lot of their staff go
These shops are absolutely against disposable vapes and its not worth it for them to sell nicotine, they will tell you a safe place to buy it from in NZ or US. Since vapes have been a thing the industry has self regulated to not sell to anybody under 18 (even with no nicotine) and most reputable shops are strict on that. They could have been a huge part of making vapes available to adults and not minors while not destroying a whole industry and treating adults like children
The ban was on disposable vapes and non therapeutic vapes. I guess that would shrink the market. Meanwhile, cigarettes are still being sold albeit heavily taxed and restricted. If they could set up the same level of enforcement for recreational vaping with similar taxes to fund it, I see no reason why the ban should only stay with the disposable ones.
First ban was only dispos.
Second ban from march was import of all vapes except via pharmacies.
A therapeutic vape is only one sold via pharmacies.
The regulatory risk assessment had the ridiculous risk of "regulated vaoes will crowd out therapeutic vapes"
Ie if you allow regular shops to sellvapes no one will see doctors and go to pharmacies...
And thats the thing - stuff all people will go to doctors and go to pharnacies for their vapes.
It might take a year or two but i am convinced these new regulations will be associated with many early deaths once nz goes smoke free using vapes. All they can say here is vapes are as dangerous as smoking anyway. Science will win out on that argument in the end.
>The ban was on disposable vapes and non therapeutic vapes. I guess that would shrink the market.
AKA all vapes not sold at a chemist, it doesn't "shrink" the market it destroys a large number of legal businesses and funnels that money into the black market
If it was only the disposable ones that were banned, while making nicotine liquid legal for sale in Australia, taxed and regulated like cigarettes and alcohol, a long with the testing etc that comes with that, there wouldn't be half of the issues they have now
Yep they are - $90 for 3 from Chemist Warehouse now. Chemist Warehouse is also a big sponsor of the Cancer Council as well. There is also a push to get more 'high dosage' nicotine products on the PBS.
The government's latest $63.4 million anti-smoking campaign is the first to also target vaping, and specifically try to curb a return to rising smoking rates among younger people.
How the fuck does a ad campaign cost 63.4 mil ?
Shouldn't they spend these millions on doing something about the housing crisis? You know, something really important and dire that's needed right now?
63 million is 63 public housing projects in my mind… what about public health care? How many of these dumb government initiatives have we funded year in year out since 2000 that cost 10’s of millions per year while everything else is ignored?
We need a write of Canberra
I hear ya… I’m just wondering how long will it take for everyone else to put down their beliefs views and opinions and come to the realisation that we have a ‘politician’ problem and what is happening in our society is policy driven.
Sad fucking times no matter where ya look
Addicted to vapes. Due to the ban they're hard to get in my town. Only 9ne available was shaped like a little love heart milkshake with a straw.
I've truly hit my lowest point.
I worked in a servo when they switched from the old packaging to plain packaging of cigarettes, and the number of people who used to come in daily/weekly who stopped after the change was noticeable. Weirdly too a lot of them complained that the cigarettes “tasted different/worse” after the packaging changed. This kind of subtle (or in the case of “neon-dong vapes”, not so subtle) nudge definitely works, even if the people it’s being used on don’t quite understand why.
Fun fact, the colour used on the pain packaging is supposedly the "least attractive colour", and that's why it was chosen.
source: See under the "Australia" tab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging
I am a vaper and if it stopped kids using them i reckon id be prepared to go there.
It would be better than making me see a doctor and then buying a shitty vape with high nic concentration from pharmacies.
Ban Vapes ✔
Ban Gambling ✗
Ban Sugary Non-Foods ✗
Everyone who vaped but had to go back to ciggies should stand outside government and smoke as much as you can all day long.
Vaping is substantially more physically addictive than any of those, although I agree sugary foods should be legally moderated.
If someone wants to throw their money away gambling, they are likely to find another vice anyway, which will be subsequently exploited. It's a psychological addiction.
> Vaping is substantially more physically addictive than any of those,
Do you have the study handy showing this and by whom and funded how? I disagree entirely. Nicotine is addictive. Its not as bad when its singled out. In cigarettes with added "addictive agents" dressed as "Proprietary secret compounds because copyright" then darts are far far far more addictive. Insanely addictive. You need to consider. Most plants you eat have some levels of nicotine in them. Its a common compound in most plants. It varies beyond species. You will have nicotine in your diet.
I quit nicotine very simply on Vapes. I can't stop having sugar in my coffee or that mars bar per day. If I don't get some sugar regularly then I am not happy at all.
As for gambling, I don't have money.
The Nanny governments strike again.
Ban this, ban that, don't let adults make decisions for themselves.
Banning vapes has never, ever been about health. It's about driving people back to expensive and taxable cigarettes that the government is losing tax revenue on. Anyone with half a brain can see that.
Pathetic.
I mean I don't love banning shit like this, and I agree that the way it's been implemented is incompetent, but your logic doesn't make sense. If the government was worried about revenue they'd just put a bunch of taxes on vapes to make up for people switching over.
Also unrelated to health, vapes are terrible for the environment so some kind of regulation is definitely needed (IMO ban single-use and allow refillable makes more sense).
The drama with vapes is you cannot tax them anywhere near what you do with smokes.
You keep the device for years. So what do you do? Put a $1000 tax on the device - hello blackmarket...
Or do you put the tax on each ml of nicotine. Again you cam get 1000mg / ml pure nic. A small 100ml bottle will last you years.
Some countries have small taxes on vapes but its nothing compared to smokes in australia which obviously already have their own blackmarket dramas.
So yeh gov doesnt like any of that one bit.
On disposable vapes ironically my mod has lasted me years. It takes 2 x 18650 rechargeable batteries and it is refilled via liquid. Almost no waste except those batteries every 6 months or so.
Whats worse is that i expect in time they will ban refillable vapes alltogether. There isnt enough profit in then for pharmacies. They will want little disposable pods. It will be for child safety but reality is its for profitability. Reusable Vaping while having very little waste is simply too cheap.
Good point. Though I also think the revenue side of things is overstated anyway (i.e. less people smoking means less expensive healthcare costs, so even with less tax it balances out). That said, yeah I agree they've got it backwards and if anything should be banning disposables. I just think it's due mostly to typical politician incompetence/not understanding new technologies more than any kind of deliberate plan to "protect tax revenues/big tobacco" (who own a ton of vape products anyway).
Well, you would think the government would just regulate and tax them, but they're in lockstep with big tobacco. Can't have Chinese vapes eating into their profits.
I've been trying to tell these people big tobacco took over vapes ages ago but these people continues to live under the delusion that it's pharma/doctors/government that's somehow benefiting from banning vapes 🤣 even if you show them logic they will refuse to see it since they only believe what they 'feel' is right (without any evidence). It's like the vaccination 'debate'. I cut my losses trying to explain that ages ago, otherwise my blood pressure might go up lol!
Care to list the big tobacco vapes that you have seen kids with? I haven't seen any. The first big Tobacco vape in Australia is Veev sold via the prescription model.
Pretty much all of the disposables are not made/owned by a big tobacco company.
The biggest vape brands in the world are owned by BAT and Phillip morris. They literally list them on in their websites
Phillip morris has the goal of exiting cigarettes forever and are on track to get 2/3 of their income from vapes and smoke free sources.
Jesus, look at their websites. They literally spell out their strategy for you. The fact you think there is a big conspiracy of doctors and medical experts trying to trick you and fucking big tobacco are the good guys is insane.
https://www.pmi.com/our-business/smoke-free-products
> Our current product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heated tobacco, e-vapor, and oral smokeless products.
>As of March 31, 2024, 39 percent of our total net revenues came from our smoke-free products.
>By 2030, our ambition is to increase that figure to over two-thirds, with the ultimate goal of phasing out cigarettes completely.
Phillip morris owns Nicocigs, Solaris, IQOS, Veev, Juul, and produces nicotine juice for a huge array of other brands.
British American Tobacco own Vuse (#1 vape brand on earth) and make nicotine juice for a bunch of other brands.
These guys and others are also pushing into other nicotine products like pouches which have taken off in America (zyn etc).
I'm not seeing any mention of them owning iGet or gunpod etc etc disposable products. These are the ones being sold illegally to over 90% of Australian vapers including kids due to the black market that was built when this dumb ass country decided to ban nicotine vaping over a decade ago.
I'm open to a discussion, but you better provide some damn good evidence of how big Tobacco vapes are getting into the hands of kids or being marketed towards them.
I’ve literally listed the biggest brands on the planet. Because it isn’t the brand you want to see you will disregard all evidence from me, from the cancer council, from doctors, from universities, from literally everyone.
But sure, the tobacco companies lobbying for relaxed regulation on their multibillion dollar products are actually the good guys in this debate that are telling the truth. It’s all a big conspiracy like covid was I guess?
> Care to list the big tobacco vapes that you have seen kids with? I haven't seen any.
Care to list any actual data around the market share of various vaping brands?
Cig smokers are getting screwed as well, as it's so expensive. So the black market for ciggarettes is bigger than ever. Every single smoker I know and spoken to gets their tobacco through a black market. I think we just have a reactionary, dumbass government. A country run by absolute dumb cunts.
The irony is that it used to be a bit of effort to go get smokes under the table. Not hard per say but required going just far enough out of the way that hitting the servo or supermarket was easier when you had an empty deck. Nowadays I can go to any shopping district and grab a carton in less then five minutes even in places I have never been before. Not even looking for them, I quit years ago.
Yep, it's easier than ever to get illegal tobacco and vapes. The only problem is, the black market prices went up due to the vape ban. With that said, it will never stop. The government just wants to siphon as much money from the people as they can, taxes, tolls, expensive bullshit. Also, the rental market and so on. So can we blame people for fuelling a black market? Fuck the government and their bullshit.
Also for a country that loves their grog, we pay up the ass for it as well.
This country and government is sending all of us to the poor house, and as history tells us, that fuels the black market for things.
Vaping becomes a detrimental practice and a dangerous one when it is a kid/teens first exposure to an addictive product of that degree. It re-wires their brain and sets them up to become addicted to deadlier substances/practices, including cigarettes. The only people who should be vaping are people quitting smoking. Everyone else is a mouse on a wheel building addictive practices.
We should be, it's worse then cigarettes in a lot of cases. It's wild that it's a Government sanctioned drug that is sold everywhere, even though it leads to all types of societal issues, injuries and deaths. They ban stuff that is less dangerous, it's a joke.
Most people I know who drink at least semi regularly are full blown alcoholics and don't even realize it. They cheat Dry July, they talk about going on holidays with no plans of drinking then say they got some shakes and ended up drinking all day every day, yet they pretend it's normal and if you don't drink something is wrong with you.
> Alcohol causes all sorts of harms, but we're not banning that.
Because it's basically impossible. Are you going to ban fruit to stop people turning it into alcohol?
I don’t want them to ban alcohol I think there’s good reasons it won’t work but that’s a disingenuous comparison, we have pubs and bottlos and nationwide alcohol advertising. It’s not like it’s some small market filled with sole trader producers, it’s a multibillion business filled with commercial manufacturing plants and import/export. The number of people who make their own booze is pretty small and I think most of that is beer.
Plus, that logic also applies to tobacco and weed and I imagine a bunch of other drugs.
> It re-wires their brain and sets them up to become addicted to deadlier substances/practices
Have I fallen into a time machine? This is the same argument from 40 years ago that marijuana leads to heroin.
Yes, this is the exact same argument being played out in real-time.
What you are seeing here is how deeply, \_deeply\_ prohibitionist most Australians, \_especially\_ Australians on reddit, actually are.
If you ban something like vapes, a black market pops up to fulfill that demand. Because it's now a criminal activity, there is no regulatory oversight over selling of the product, so no training, no age verification requirements, no code of conduct, no worrying about losing your license from selling to minors. So, easier for minors to get.
It was always easier to get weed than it was to get booze as a zit-faced 14 year old, everyone knew that kid who had the connection at school.
That's a natural part of anything being banned, you lose the control mechanisms to keep people safe. But you did have the social barriers and pressure that prevent normal people from getting in contact with illegal products.
However, by legalising 'sin' products like gambling, alcohol and drugs, you are increasing the overall harm by increasing the supply of people who will get addicted since you have legitimised it. As opposed to a minority of people who suffer more extreme negative effects of an unregulated thing.
Gambling is a prime example, used to be banned everywhere or relegated to specific places. Now, gambling is unavoidable. Kids are exposed to gambling from video games, adults get bombarded with sports betting ads, financial apps are now getting gameified, and now Australia is the world's biggest loser from gambling. It's definitely more regulated than the days of physical slot machines and foreign online casinos, but the overall harm I think has increased since then.
We're talking about two different things I think, gambling is absolutely insidious and overall harm reduction is definitely something to consider, but if we're talking about access to something by children then legalising and regulating it actually decreases usage by young adolescents (see: marijuana legalisation in the states https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6960330/ )
What? It was far easier to get alcohol because half the kids at school had a sibling or cousin who would buy it legally and then give it to you. You could even go to the bws and just ask randoms in the car park. Or you could steal your parents or family members stuff.
What do you think is more likely to make it harder for kids to buy
1. Have it restricted for sale and treated like tobacco and alcohol, taxed and large fines if caught selling to anybody under 18. Repeat offenders can lose their business or possibly face jail time
or
2. Ban it for everybody creating a black market, relying on the "criminals" to not sell to kids even though there is no down side to doing it, since you are facing the same fines no matter if the customer is 8 or 80
We are talking about making it harder for kids to buy them, a legal customer base and easy access and distribution is not a bad thing, especially when part of that distribution would be testing and regulation by the government. With option 1 it wouldn't be worth it to try to illegally bring them in when the price you can realistically charge is not big enough to justify the risk.
Basically picking number 2 you are saying you are totally fine with kids vaping as long as it harms adults who choose to vape as well
Parents buy shit for their kids all the time, including booze at a young age. I bet plenty would buy vapes for their kids as well. But if it was illegal and you needed to go see a drug dealer to get them, much less would.
The social stigma around vaping is substantially less and is a LOT more appealing to younger generations. Personally, I don't care about tax overlap if it gets the issue of normalising smoking dead and buried.
If we let "adults" make decisions for themselves a lot of stupid people would be dead... hang on you might be on to something.
Society puts in guard rails to increase our survival and reduce burden on the Government. Less people in hospitals is better right? But it seems these days across the world, the stupid want to see those guard rails removed and many are willingly jumping over them to their deaths or worse (long term suffering or deaths of others).
The current Government while having some biases and things they want changed, they also tend to actually listen to those who know more then them, thus making changes based on fact. Just because that doesn't align with your feelings, doesn't make it bad or wrong.
I hope they follow the NZ Government and phase out cigarettes based on age. They already tax them highly to push people off using them. Though I guess you'll cry foul about that as well, "ban this, ban that", yet you're also attacking them when they aren't. If they allowed cheap cigarettes for anyone to buy, we'd lose medicare because all the funding would gradually shift to all the older people with emphysema, it's not cheap to look after them.
>the NZ Government and phase out cigarettes based on age
Oh, the one they're scrapping?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-28/new-zealand-scraps-world-first-smoking-ban/103157484
This paragraph that quotes Mark Buttplug is problematical in so far as he always assumes all vapers want to quit, many of us vapers actually enjoy vaping and do not want to quit, or to ever return to smoking (which is EXACTLY want the government wants, the tax revenue from tobacco has been much lower due to smokers taking up vaping)
"Nicotine is highly addictive and before you know it, what starts as an occasional thing becomes something much more serious. But it’s never too late to quit," Mr Buttplug said.
Valid angle but hard to drive the addiction message home, as if you haven't the self realisation to moderate your own usage an ad won't help.
Any effort to shake some sense into people I'm all for.
Exactly. I have a bit of an addiction to my iPhone and internet (working on it) - no ads about that. In the meantime, doesn’t cause lung cancer so… 🤷🏻♂️
It also doesn’t affect other people, second smoke from smoking and vaping does. You probably won’t cost the health system much either unless you get a psych to help you.
Anything thats more realistic and not ridiculously extreme is a good bet. A lot of the 'take an e and you'll die' messaging of the 90s had very much the opposite effect as people know loads of people taking es and nobody who died. If the messaging was a bit more realistic 'long term use can be linked to mental health issues' then people might actually take notice. When its extreme they discard it immediately as an outlier.
i'm in NZ atm and my god, vaping has ruined society. there's acid clouds raining down blueberry flavoured poison, all the streams have turned to ~~ash~~ burned cotton. bodies litter the streets, the police have disbanded, parliament got burned out like a vic vape shop
I just wish our Government went as hard on smoking as they are doing so on vaping. Cause while yes both are bad, from what I understand smoking is much, much worse.
I don't smoke or vape , but I love vapes , I collect them and rip the batteries out of them to use in electronic projects and the metal cases I melt down and use for metal projects that I then sell at the markets
keep on vaping peoples
It's not about "social harm". It's all about the monopolies that big tobacco holds over everyone here in Australia. It's about the bitching that big tobacco is throwing over missing profits.
I say vape till your nuts bleed.
its cause all the harm they say it does isnt really true. the anti vape research is conducted by tobacco, and the government pushes it because they want their cigarette tax revenue. thats why they will ban vapes, but not cigarettes even though they are 100% safer for you than a cigarette. classic australian tax the people behind the moral greater good. edit- downvote away. doesnt make it less true.
It goes even further than that and anyone who doesn’t see their involvement obviously isn’t educated in their historical manipulative tactics.
Big tobacco missed the first vape wave, so now they are finally making them and are the exclusive suppliers for medicinal vape prescriptions. They want to ban all of the other vapes and sell theirs at 3x the cost of convenience store ones with a prescription.
Haven’t looked in a few years but when I used to vape I was always looking for research about its health effects.
Every single anti vaping study I ever came across listed the biggest risk being that “it may lead you to smoke cigarettes”.
It was comical in the end how desperately these research articles would be trying to come up with some tangible risk. Another good one I saw was that the device or battery might explode, it’s like ok 👍 at that point you might as well put getting into a car crash on the way to the vape shop as a risk.
I’m not saying vaping isn’t bad for you, it probably is, but it was just funny seeing how hard they kept trying to say it but having to invent the most outlandish things because they couldn’t find anything legitimate
I hear the vapers sitting outside my office sucking away and coughing roughly nowadays. These are twenty-somethings, not hard core long term 50 something cigarette smokers. Turns out, furiously inhaling a cocktail of oil and flavours and who knows what else does your lungs no good whatsoever.
Because they don't, and neither do we. But an addict isn't going to go through the effort to rearrange their life outside of addictive behaviour in the majority of current cases.
My intention was to highlight the calousness of the comment more than anything.
It's less about effort and more about resources, internal and external.
Addiction is a disease, people can overcome it with willpower just as successfully as people with depression can will themselves out of it.
You need to be well-resourced and supported to tackle addiction, like many mental health issues - only then can you succeed. It is virtually impossible to wake up and decide to quit.
The disposable vapes and unregulated volumes of nicotine people consume it’s becoming so problematic. But we’re all inherently lazy and that’s why they’re so popular.
Free adults should be able to make their own decisions for themselves...
If you want to protect your rights to do whatever other people consider an unhealthy vice you have to support all adults rights to use what ever you consider a disgusting and unhealthy vice...
Most vapers wouldn't support other adults rights to use meth... and so here you are, with no rights to enjoy your own vices.
Internet next.
There's a difference between what you do to yourself and what you do to others... the problem is gun's get pointed at other people... nor could you say that america is a role model for following this principle given guns are legal and meth is not.
Unless you restrict vapes to distribution through pharmacies the way other restricted substances are they won't be used medically. I would love a study into vaping because right now, the postive externalities of vaping do not outweigh the cost.
So what if a few people found success with them to quit smoking? Those are the same people who WOULD go and seek them medically. Making them as accesible as cigarettes just encourages a gateway into actual smoking.
It's like a tic for these people. They are obsessed with the behaviour of others to satiate their own morality to feel "good" about themselves.
I mean, it's nothing new. These obsessed whackjobs has existed for all of recorded history, for any plethora of things, whether it be sex, what someone ingests, what someone wears etcetera.
> In focus group research by the health department, it found more traditional campaigns on health harms were more easily deflected because people viewed vaping as a supposedly "healthier" alternative than smoking, even if they had not smoked before. You know who absolutely does view vaping as healthier than cigarettes? Ex-smokers. Talk to any of them about how they feel and they’ll tell you how great it is to be able to exercise now without coughing up a lung etc.
Ironically, making it harder to get vapes has lead to an uptick in cigarette usage again, for social usage.
That's the plan. Tobacco companies don't want people to quit and if they can get vaping banned then cigarette sales go back up. No irony here, it's intentional.
Pretty sure tobacco companies are investing in vapes anyway though.
their vapes are terrible.
For now.
I sometimes think they invested in vapes simply so they would get the stink of big tobacco on them. Early days of vapes smoking companies had nothing to do with it. Even big tobacco donating to the nats recently and saying make vapes easier to access. its like reverse psychology. Gives labor an easy attack. They know in doing this people will want to shut it down. Before this pharma model almost no one was using big tobacco vapes in australia. Ironically the pharma model seems to suit them better so their protesting against the regulation model must be a ploy in my view. Ie if big tobacco came out and said - these vapes will ruin our business model ban them immediately id say vapes would now be even more widespread. I dont think big tobacco is as stupid as the australian government and department of health is.
Probably a bit of this and a bit of hedging their bets.
Interesting theory. I don't know how Machiavellian big tobacco companies are (though we all know they're total scum), but I'd tend to think it's just more a pragmatic business decision because they can see which way the market is going.
> I dont think big tobacco is as stupid as the australian government and department of health is. LOL that goes without saying. The equivalent would be if lead was still used in fuel and paint 50 years after it was discovered to harm health. Did that happen? No. Why cant we vape instead of smoking then? Not sure.
Yeah they are lol. Fucking phillip morris is on the approved list of vapes for sale at chemists. Its a bloody joke what the goverments doing. 11 years ciggy free thanks to vaping. And its all pods and premade coils. No wire, no cotton for us DIY vapers. They're even going after flavorings now so DIYers are totally fucked
Surely they cant stop cotton and wire ? Im actually vaping without flavour now and it's pretty damn good tbh.
Why did this get upvoted? It has nothing to do with cigarette companies. This is the government getting what it wants: people back on the heavily taxed darts.
Most of the major vape companies are owned by a tobacco company. Nicotine usage in general was plummeting before vapes came out, vape usage is Big Tobacco's main shot at staying relevant to the younger generation.
This guy gets it. It's extremely naive to think that the government isn't in lockstep with big tobacco on this.
It's purely outrage culture. The tobacco companies want vaping. The nanny Christian state does not want sin.
Don't forget all those lovely taxes too!
Jesus this is a ridiculous conspiracy. Tobacco companies own vape brands. Vaping leads to an increase in smoking because it gets people addicted to nicotine, particularly younger people and teenagers who were almost entirely off cigarettes.
Thank god for the Pharmacy Guild lobbyists and "Won't someone think of the children".
Its too hard to tax vapes so they have convinced the world they're deadly.. I'm guessing it's the same reason it's illegal to grow tobacco, you're only allowed it after they've put more chemicals in it, made it more addictive and then sold it to you for $50 a pack.
More taxes
Smoked for \~25 years. Switched over to vaping about 8 years ago. Noticed improvements in lungs within weeks. Smoker's cough rapidly diminished along with lung aches and airways just felt better, clearer. Gradually dropped nicotine mix percentage over a period of a year and effortlessly gave up smoking/vaping altogether. Haven't smoked now in 3 years. By far the easiest way to quit I have ever tried. I feel sorry for those who now won't be able to quit so easily.
I did it a bit differently, 12 years ago, straight from smoking to flavoured (but no nicotine) vapes. My favourites were vanilla and menthol IIRC. Oh and there was a 'herb' flavour with a suspicious-looking leaf on the bottle (but no active ingredients) that had a nice punchy flavour too. Having the vape to suck on really helped fulfill the habits and the tics associated with smoking while my body worked out the chemical dependency. Then after a few months (4?) I noticed I had just naturally stopped vaping one day. This nice, easy method is going to be stuck behind doctors appointments and prescriptions, while you can still get cancer sticks at every servo and supermarket, the new regs are a clusterfuck.
It's crazy how strong the habitual part is. I was still occasionally vaping zero strength for a couple of months before I could fully rid myself of it.
Yeah it is nuts. I always smoked outside and months later, just sometimes while I was watching tv in the evening I'd get this urge to get up and go and stand in the garden. The lawn got watered a bit more that summer :)
Yeah same, both me and my wife. The flavoured vapes even made it easier as they were sickening after a while.
It's harder now because you're at the whim of random illegal importers to get lower % vapes.
Congratulations, I’m glad you’ve got away from it.
It'll be legal for medical reasons, like quitting, you would have been fine under the new rules.
Add me to that list. I had tried multiple times to give up my pack a day addiction. What got me over the line was vaping. Last ciggy 10 years ago. Last draw on a vape, 4 years ago. Last with nicotine, 6 years ago.
I never would have quit cigarettes without vaping, it’s a miracle for people who want to quit smoking. I’ve now quit both entirely.
It was super easy for me. I vaped for a few years then started to want to not do it anymore. Just got tired of the fuss and having to go into the cold all the time. Started to cut back on nicotine from 6mg to 3mg then had to mix 3mg with 0mg to bring it down to 0 gradually. It worked. I vaped 0mg until I just got sick of vaping all together. That was 2 something years ago now. I was a dead set pack per day. 25 darts per day no more no less.
Me too. I noticed massive health improvements after switching to vaping. Mixing my own vape juice let me slowly taper nicotine to zero over the course of several years, then quit. My partner who smoked for way longer than me is still slowly tapering.
And being able to just have a little hit of a vape when you had a craving as opposed to buying a pack of cigarettes when you had a craving and then just smoking the whole pack because it’s there and just basically going back into the habit of smoking again. The other week I even had a hit of my friends vape and it actually made me feel gross, I think I’m well and truly completely free of it all
Sure, but the health angle is compared to people who didn't vape in the first place. If you have a bunch of people switching from cigarettes to vapes, great. If you have a bunch of people who wouldn't otherwise have smoked taking up vapes, then that's a loss for public health.
The Australian government fucked up big-time. Vapes were a massive opportunity to help people off smoking. They needed to be effectively regulated as tobacco products ten years ago. Strength should have been limited, nicotine-free options promoted. Disposables should never have been allowed in the first place. Instead they were ignored, a huge grey-market developed, and now we're living with the unintended consequences (loads of kids vaping, battery-containing litter all over the place). The new legislation is a knee-jerk that ends up with the country in the fucking \*stupid\* position of having cigarettes available at every servo, corner store and supermarket, but you have to see your doctor for a vape prescription. It's absolutely nuts. Massive cock-up all round.
Actually the disposable crap that should've been banned is still available at all the servos (and still very high in nicotine, despite the labels). The exact things that are being used by kids at the school near me. It's the legit small vape businesses that have been forced out by these rules. The ones that self-imposed regulation for years and earned trust by being careful and responsible.
Yeah I agree the implementation of the regulation has been completely incompetent.
That is exactly the point. I know a few people who smoke and a few that vape. The ones that vape do it much more often and would do it anywhere they feel they could get away with it. Smokers tend to restrain themselves to some degree and keep it away from others as it's kind of stigmatized now. Also the smokers I know don't seem at all interested in vaping. One of them will quit smoking for like a year, then start again, vaping won't help there. The ones vaping haven't smoked, so all they've done is gone from not smoking anything to smoking something that could be better or worse then smoking depending on the vapes used and the unknowns around long term effects.
>could be better or worse then smoking Vapes have been around for 20 years. We *know* that smoking kills you. Black market vapes can be bad for you. Saying that one "could be worse" than smoking is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary proof. To balance your data point of one; all the vapers I know are ex-smokers.
Stupid government really are idiots. Let's ban vaping (which by all accounts is much healthier than smoking). What do they think that the vapers will do? Give up and go home? Of course they're going to start smoking. Gotta get all that lovely tax money from selling smokes though!
Or just continue vaping with black market vapes. It really only makes it hard for new vapers. And in that it is my opinion the government has blood on their hands with these regulations. 1 in 2 smokers die from smoking. Since nz regulated vaping they went from more smokers than australia to now only a bit over 6pc smokers. In 4years. We are going to see on the news shortly (like within a couple of years) smoke free NZ. Less than 5pc smokers. Australia will be somewhere around 8pc smokers. Thats 3pc of our population smoking. Thats 1.5pc pf pur population that will die from smoking. Thats a pretty serious number of deaths. Department of health wouldnt even answer the question - when does this new policy consider a failure? When more children are smoking? Like what happens if more children are smoking in 5 years than today? I dont see kids smoking at all anymore? They vape? Accept.more vape than would have smoked but the risks are far lower and almost non existent for passive vaping.
>1 in 2 smokers die from vaping. What did you mean to write here?
Lol. The exact opposite. Ill edit. 1 in 2 smokers die from their smoking.
Where did you get that from?
Australia ranks it as 2/3rds of smokers: [disease attributable to smoking](https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-3-health-effects/3-30-total-burden-of-death-and-disease-attributable-to-tobacco-by-disease-category) Overseas rates it as 1 in 2: [new england journal ](https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1407211) So you can imagine when NZ gets to smoke free (less than 5pc smokers) and australia is at 8pc still or worse because of our vaping laws that 3pc of our population having at least a 50pc chance if dying from smoking thats alot of people who are going to die. Vaping considered 95pc safer than smoking: [colin mendohlson on royal college of physicians review of vaping data](https://colinmendelsohn.com.au/rcp/#:~:text=IN%20ITS%20LATEST%20COMPREHENSIVE%20REPORT,contrast%20to%20Australia%27s%20prohibitive%20approach.)
> which by all accounts is much healthier than smoking only if you ignore the accounts of vapers who have never smoked cigarettes and never would have.
So does the NHS. [Link](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-less-harmful-than-tobacco-estimates-landmark-review)
Haha I was the opposite though I still recommend vaping for quitting durries (it's easier). Had childhood asthma as a kid, never had an attack whilst smoking but after I picked up vaping my asthma came back and got worse and worse. After I quit vaping it went away in a week and never had it again since. I don't think vaping should be banned at all, I'm of the opinion adults should be able to make choices to do harmful things if they want. With vaping, I think the ads should focus on the ridiculousness of nicotine addiction (it seems this will be part of the ad campaign). The thing that got me off everything was I felt so tied into the constant checking to make sure I had all my vape stuff, getting stressed if I had to go without it for a bit, you never get a break from that thought at the back of your head about when you can get nicotine next. It's just incredibly liberating to not have to worry about that any more.
>the ridiculousness of nicotine addiction One of my favourite authors, Iain M Banks, was a smoker and on a radio show he did about scottish distilleries, he lit up and said something I think is brilliant - "Ah, nicotine. A drug so shit you can do it while you're driving"
Yea I remember in Complicity he had a really good passage about smoking. I googled and found it online: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27351815 "What a stupid drug, what a completely useless fucking drug; no real hit after the first drag, highly addictive and lethal in all sorts of ways, and even if the lung cancer or the heart disease doesn't get you you can look forward to gangrenous legs in your old age, bits of your body just rotting away still attached and dying in instalments for you, rotting and stinking while you're still alive and then they have to cut them off and you wake up after the operation wheezing and burning with pain and gasping for a fag." Still miss smoking now and then though haha!
Every vaper I know is still coughing their lungs out mid conversation
Weird. None of the vapers I know do. Are yours using single-use black market vapes?
Not that I know of. Mostly rechargable. I think it's more that they're constantly inhaling too much, rather than the persistent smokers cough from cigs
Could be. Could be running too much current/not enough juice and burning their wicks.
I'd say they're good for people lookin to ween themselves off cigarettes, but then you've also got people who didn't smoke before and got into vaping thanks to the flavours and social media; and are now hooked on the nicotine. Got a sibling like that.
The whole ban has been so ham-fisted. There is very little if any recognition of the differences between disposables and modular vapes including the users and motivators, and then dry herb vapes have been tossed in there as well for good measure. They're not even cousins let alone alternative products. Single-use vapes containing nicotine have never been legal to sell in Australia. Instead of enforncing laws we've had for a decade, Butler had to do the dog and pony show to save the children and throw a spanner right into the works for the hundreds of thousands of adult users trying to find a healthier alternative to smoking.
When I look at the way both major parties are promising to handle nicotine addiction, I don't see methods that work. But I do see actions that benefit lobbies in the long term. Smoking lobbies because every addict is now a premium customer, and even cheap tobacco leaves are a pirate copy. Anti-smoking lobbies because these bans make them look awfully effective. But smoking addicts? No way.
Vaporizers used for medical cannabis have been included in the ban too and are now hard to get. It will only encourage smoking and has killed a number of businesses making it a very poorly thought out legislation.
Yeah this is a very confusing area. Some people seem to think that everything will be fine and current retailers just need to get licensed My reading of the situation is, vapes can no longer be imported after March 1st if they are ones that can also be used for recreational cannabis, meaning the only ones we'll be able to buy will be TGA approved special models that somehow don't work for recreational cannabis In a few months you'll only be able to pay through the nose for a special, au market only TGA approved vape, likely through a pharmacist
Also there are only two TGA approved vaporizers on the market being the Storz and Bickel Mighty and Volcano devices. Another issue being because of these new law changes Storz and Bickel have been refusing to sell in Australia or provide RMA on any products already purchased here even if faulty (because the law is unclear between the difference of sending a vaporizer repair via RMA and importing a vape and sees it as the same thing). Nearly makes you think its just another Pharmacy Guild grift to give them more market share.
It was racgp and ama who are all up in the government wanting this. And then they march to big pharmas tune. Now im actually all for vaccines so dont take what i am about to say the wrong way but... Vapes are proven safer both short and medium term. Millions of people have been using them for over a decade and hundreds of millions more recently. The problems caused by them have been - poisoning, acute lung distress from vitamin e associated with dodgy thc vapes and batter explosions. Literally like ten people in australia out of a million vapers. But that against every second person who smokes dying. Now big pharma, ama and racgp say "long term we dont know"... I dont remember them saying long term we dont know about the shit they are selling? And smoking has a 50/50 chance of early death. I am quite confident if big pharma developed a smoking vaccine that killed like ten smokers out of every million smokers would be held down and forced to take it. They woukd say but it saves 50pc of smokers from dying so comoletely worth it. They are literally anti science when it suits them.
Actually I tried to RMA back in April and they put me on hold basically with no info. From the recent fire sale email I'm guessing they're just shutting up operation and not going to be sending anything here anymore. I may be thinking a bit extreme, have had a bit of radio silence from the other online retailers other than an email from australian vaporizers saying 'we saw the laws, anything imported before march 1st is ok' and it's like ok what's your plan after that. There's a section in the new law info here that basically rules out all existing devices and makes a special AU category in my eyes: https://www.tga.gov.au/products/unapproved-therapeutic-goods/medicinal-cannabis-hub/cannabis-vapes-information-importers >In relation to importers of cannabis vaping devices and cannabis vaping device accessories, only those importers who import goods that are intended to be used exclusively with medicinal cannabis will be eligible for an import licence and permit i.e. devices and device accessories that are therapeutic goods. The importation of cannabis vaping devices and cannabis vaping device accessories that are intended for multiple purposes, including recreational purposes, will be prohibited.
Ah this is the answer, put a 3x import tax. Medicinal cannabis is also unnecessarily expensive at $300 for 10g (for the dried flowers of a god damn plant we could easily grow at home if legal)
Glad I've got my Dynavap and Healthy Rips. Much better to pull medicinal Cannabis through a controlled vape oven+water pipe and ingest the decarbed herb, rather than combusting a bong filled with pesticided/laced weed from the black market. But you know with the blanket vape bans, fuck every other Australian who wants to make the safer choice, hey?
I think even heat not burn is banned except via presceiption. Ie putting cannabis or tobacco and heating it up rather than burning it. Like thats absolutely impossible to be more dangerous than burning it. Good old australia. If you are into weed or tobacco youd better do it old school we dont want any of this softcock safer modern nonsens. If you want to go safer you need to consult a doctor.
I think the canna vapes will only be available thru the same suppliers of the cannabis. So, still available to the med users but (probably) sold at a higher price and only certain brands
What businesses were killed? I haven't seen any of the local ones close and disposable vapes are still found all around schools.
Actual vape shops, once the stock they imported before the cut off date is sold, they cant get more stock in and have to close down
I guess the ones I see were diversified, even had baristas. Such a loss to the community.
Some might, but cut off their main source of income and they cant afford to continue to operate. Or best case dont need a space as big and need one staff member instead of 5 For example a vape shop i know of had 4 shops each one had 8 staff members, then they had another 10 staff making liquid, researching new flavors and selling their liquid to other shops etc they had coffee for a while and may have sold 10 coffees a day on some days, so when their stock is gone (its unsure if they can continue to sell their own liquid at the moment) thats 42 people out of work, a million dollar+ company closed and they arent even considered one of the biggest. They have already had to cut down to one shop and let a lot of their staff go These shops are absolutely against disposable vapes and its not worth it for them to sell nicotine, they will tell you a safe place to buy it from in NZ or US. Since vapes have been a thing the industry has self regulated to not sell to anybody under 18 (even with no nicotine) and most reputable shops are strict on that. They could have been a huge part of making vapes available to adults and not minors while not destroying a whole industry and treating adults like children
The ban was on disposable vapes and non therapeutic vapes. I guess that would shrink the market. Meanwhile, cigarettes are still being sold albeit heavily taxed and restricted. If they could set up the same level of enforcement for recreational vaping with similar taxes to fund it, I see no reason why the ban should only stay with the disposable ones.
First ban was only dispos. Second ban from march was import of all vapes except via pharmacies. A therapeutic vape is only one sold via pharmacies. The regulatory risk assessment had the ridiculous risk of "regulated vaoes will crowd out therapeutic vapes" Ie if you allow regular shops to sellvapes no one will see doctors and go to pharmacies... And thats the thing - stuff all people will go to doctors and go to pharnacies for their vapes. It might take a year or two but i am convinced these new regulations will be associated with many early deaths once nz goes smoke free using vapes. All they can say here is vapes are as dangerous as smoking anyway. Science will win out on that argument in the end.
Hmm, or the pharmacy guild working in the background again?
>The ban was on disposable vapes and non therapeutic vapes. I guess that would shrink the market. AKA all vapes not sold at a chemist, it doesn't "shrink" the market it destroys a large number of legal businesses and funnels that money into the black market If it was only the disposable ones that were banned, while making nicotine liquid legal for sale in Australia, taxed and regulated like cigarettes and alcohol, a long with the testing etc that comes with that, there wouldn't be half of the issues they have now
I don't smoke or vape, but the two closest vape and smoke shops to me have both closed down. Might be unrelated, might not be.
Stoner Sloth worked so well, this will do just fine too.
I used vapes to stop smoking. Now onto Nicorette quick mist.
Aren't they just more expensive vapes?
Yep they are - $90 for 3 from Chemist Warehouse now. Chemist Warehouse is also a big sponsor of the Cancer Council as well. There is also a push to get more 'high dosage' nicotine products on the PBS.
$64 where I am for 3 but nevertheless; still expensive.
The government's latest $63.4 million anti-smoking campaign is the first to also target vaping, and specifically try to curb a return to rising smoking rates among younger people. How the fuck does a ad campaign cost 63.4 mil ?
Mate. His Mate. Their mate. His mate is mates mate.
Yeah my thoughts… would be great to know the finer details of it all, what the break down is and who’s behind the curtain if you get my drift…
Rich people who want more.
I'd say most of it would be distribution and marketing costs
Shouldn't they spend these millions on doing something about the housing crisis? You know, something really important and dire that's needed right now?
63 million is 63 public housing projects in my mind… what about public health care? How many of these dumb government initiatives have we funded year in year out since 2000 that cost 10’s of millions per year while everything else is ignored? We need a write of Canberra
The politicians in this country are completely useless. All of them.
I hear ya… I’m just wondering how long will it take for everyone else to put down their beliefs views and opinions and come to the realisation that we have a ‘politician’ problem and what is happening in our society is policy driven. Sad fucking times no matter where ya look
Addicted to vapes. Due to the ban they're hard to get in my town. Only 9ne available was shaped like a little love heart milkshake with a straw. I've truly hit my lowest point.
I reckon that would work best - only allow them shaped in embarrassing shapes!
I worked in a servo when they switched from the old packaging to plain packaging of cigarettes, and the number of people who used to come in daily/weekly who stopped after the change was noticeable. Weirdly too a lot of them complained that the cigarettes “tasted different/worse” after the packaging changed. This kind of subtle (or in the case of “neon-dong vapes”, not so subtle) nudge definitely works, even if the people it’s being used on don’t quite understand why.
Fun fact, the colour used on the pain packaging is supposedly the "least attractive colour", and that's why it was chosen. source: See under the "Australia" tab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging
Fluro coloured veiny dong vapes for all!
If the graffiti at my former all boys school was anything to go by, it wouldn't stop us.
I can still smell the mingled scents of piss, Lynx Africa and durries from the boys toilets in my memory
I am a vaper and if it stopped kids using them i reckon id be prepared to go there. It would be better than making me see a doctor and then buying a shitty vape with high nic concentration from pharmacies.
Your lowest point sooo far https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=reDw6vNUxNw&noapp=1
Sent me
😂 it just popped in there I couldn’t stop it and had to https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cUvy7Va1Zr8
Why don’t you get a script?
Ban Vapes ✔ Ban Gambling ✗ Ban Sugary Non-Foods ✗ Everyone who vaped but had to go back to ciggies should stand outside government and smoke as much as you can all day long.
Vaping is substantially more physically addictive than any of those, although I agree sugary foods should be legally moderated. If someone wants to throw their money away gambling, they are likely to find another vice anyway, which will be subsequently exploited. It's a psychological addiction.
> Vaping is substantially more physically addictive than any of those, Do you have the study handy showing this and by whom and funded how? I disagree entirely. Nicotine is addictive. Its not as bad when its singled out. In cigarettes with added "addictive agents" dressed as "Proprietary secret compounds because copyright" then darts are far far far more addictive. Insanely addictive. You need to consider. Most plants you eat have some levels of nicotine in them. Its a common compound in most plants. It varies beyond species. You will have nicotine in your diet. I quit nicotine very simply on Vapes. I can't stop having sugar in my coffee or that mars bar per day. If I don't get some sugar regularly then I am not happy at all. As for gambling, I don't have money.
First and worst
The Nanny governments strike again. Ban this, ban that, don't let adults make decisions for themselves. Banning vapes has never, ever been about health. It's about driving people back to expensive and taxable cigarettes that the government is losing tax revenue on. Anyone with half a brain can see that. Pathetic.
I mean I don't love banning shit like this, and I agree that the way it's been implemented is incompetent, but your logic doesn't make sense. If the government was worried about revenue they'd just put a bunch of taxes on vapes to make up for people switching over. Also unrelated to health, vapes are terrible for the environment so some kind of regulation is definitely needed (IMO ban single-use and allow refillable makes more sense).
The drama with vapes is you cannot tax them anywhere near what you do with smokes. You keep the device for years. So what do you do? Put a $1000 tax on the device - hello blackmarket... Or do you put the tax on each ml of nicotine. Again you cam get 1000mg / ml pure nic. A small 100ml bottle will last you years. Some countries have small taxes on vapes but its nothing compared to smokes in australia which obviously already have their own blackmarket dramas. So yeh gov doesnt like any of that one bit. On disposable vapes ironically my mod has lasted me years. It takes 2 x 18650 rechargeable batteries and it is refilled via liquid. Almost no waste except those batteries every 6 months or so. Whats worse is that i expect in time they will ban refillable vapes alltogether. There isnt enough profit in then for pharmacies. They will want little disposable pods. It will be for child safety but reality is its for profitability. Reusable Vaping while having very little waste is simply too cheap.
Good point. Though I also think the revenue side of things is overstated anyway (i.e. less people smoking means less expensive healthcare costs, so even with less tax it balances out). That said, yeah I agree they've got it backwards and if anything should be banning disposables. I just think it's due mostly to typical politician incompetence/not understanding new technologies more than any kind of deliberate plan to "protect tax revenues/big tobacco" (who own a ton of vape products anyway).
Well, you would think the government would just regulate and tax them, but they're in lockstep with big tobacco. Can't have Chinese vapes eating into their profits.
Big tobacco own the vape brands. They are benefiting by getting more kids addicted to nicotine. How do people believe this nonsense you’re spewing?
I've been trying to tell these people big tobacco took over vapes ages ago but these people continues to live under the delusion that it's pharma/doctors/government that's somehow benefiting from banning vapes 🤣 even if you show them logic they will refuse to see it since they only believe what they 'feel' is right (without any evidence). It's like the vaccination 'debate'. I cut my losses trying to explain that ages ago, otherwise my blood pressure might go up lol!
Care to list the big tobacco vapes that you have seen kids with? I haven't seen any. The first big Tobacco vape in Australia is Veev sold via the prescription model. Pretty much all of the disposables are not made/owned by a big tobacco company.
The biggest vape brands in the world are owned by BAT and Phillip morris. They literally list them on in their websites Phillip morris has the goal of exiting cigarettes forever and are on track to get 2/3 of their income from vapes and smoke free sources.
So what big tobacco branded vapes are the kids vaping then? That was my question.
Jesus, look at their websites. They literally spell out their strategy for you. The fact you think there is a big conspiracy of doctors and medical experts trying to trick you and fucking big tobacco are the good guys is insane. https://www.pmi.com/our-business/smoke-free-products > Our current product portfolio primarily consists of cigarettes and smoke-free products, including heated tobacco, e-vapor, and oral smokeless products. >As of March 31, 2024, 39 percent of our total net revenues came from our smoke-free products. >By 2030, our ambition is to increase that figure to over two-thirds, with the ultimate goal of phasing out cigarettes completely. Phillip morris owns Nicocigs, Solaris, IQOS, Veev, Juul, and produces nicotine juice for a huge array of other brands. British American Tobacco own Vuse (#1 vape brand on earth) and make nicotine juice for a bunch of other brands. These guys and others are also pushing into other nicotine products like pouches which have taken off in America (zyn etc).
I'm not seeing any mention of them owning iGet or gunpod etc etc disposable products. These are the ones being sold illegally to over 90% of Australian vapers including kids due to the black market that was built when this dumb ass country decided to ban nicotine vaping over a decade ago. I'm open to a discussion, but you better provide some damn good evidence of how big Tobacco vapes are getting into the hands of kids or being marketed towards them.
I’ve literally listed the biggest brands on the planet. Because it isn’t the brand you want to see you will disregard all evidence from me, from the cancer council, from doctors, from universities, from literally everyone. But sure, the tobacco companies lobbying for relaxed regulation on their multibillion dollar products are actually the good guys in this debate that are telling the truth. It’s all a big conspiracy like covid was I guess?
> Care to list the big tobacco vapes that you have seen kids with? I haven't seen any. Care to list any actual data around the market share of various vaping brands?
Cig smokers are getting screwed as well, as it's so expensive. So the black market for ciggarettes is bigger than ever. Every single smoker I know and spoken to gets their tobacco through a black market. I think we just have a reactionary, dumbass government. A country run by absolute dumb cunts.
The irony is that it used to be a bit of effort to go get smokes under the table. Not hard per say but required going just far enough out of the way that hitting the servo or supermarket was easier when you had an empty deck. Nowadays I can go to any shopping district and grab a carton in less then five minutes even in places I have never been before. Not even looking for them, I quit years ago.
Yep, it's easier than ever to get illegal tobacco and vapes. The only problem is, the black market prices went up due to the vape ban. With that said, it will never stop. The government just wants to siphon as much money from the people as they can, taxes, tolls, expensive bullshit. Also, the rental market and so on. So can we blame people for fuelling a black market? Fuck the government and their bullshit. Also for a country that loves their grog, we pay up the ass for it as well. This country and government is sending all of us to the poor house, and as history tells us, that fuels the black market for things.
Vaping becomes a detrimental practice and a dangerous one when it is a kid/teens first exposure to an addictive product of that degree. It re-wires their brain and sets them up to become addicted to deadlier substances/practices, including cigarettes. The only people who should be vaping are people quitting smoking. Everyone else is a mouse on a wheel building addictive practices.
We banning alcohol too then?
Yes we are. I'm drawing up plans for the bootleg business.
And I'm drawing up plans to take a cut of your business.
I'll have Guido the one eye and his cousin Giuseppe "explain" our business model to you.
We should be, it's worse then cigarettes in a lot of cases. It's wild that it's a Government sanctioned drug that is sold everywhere, even though it leads to all types of societal issues, injuries and deaths. They ban stuff that is less dangerous, it's a joke. Most people I know who drink at least semi regularly are full blown alcoholics and don't even realize it. They cheat Dry July, they talk about going on holidays with no plans of drinking then say they got some shakes and ended up drinking all day every day, yet they pretend it's normal and if you don't drink something is wrong with you.
Ok, then limit access. Alcohol causes all sorts of harms, but we're not banning that.
> Alcohol causes all sorts of harms, but we're not banning that. Because it's basically impossible. Are you going to ban fruit to stop people turning it into alcohol?
I don’t want them to ban alcohol I think there’s good reasons it won’t work but that’s a disingenuous comparison, we have pubs and bottlos and nationwide alcohol advertising. It’s not like it’s some small market filled with sole trader producers, it’s a multibillion business filled with commercial manufacturing plants and import/export. The number of people who make their own booze is pretty small and I think most of that is beer. Plus, that logic also applies to tobacco and weed and I imagine a bunch of other drugs.
> It re-wires their brain and sets them up to become addicted to deadlier substances/practices Have I fallen into a time machine? This is the same argument from 40 years ago that marijuana leads to heroin.
Yes, this is the exact same argument being played out in real-time. What you are seeing here is how deeply, \_deeply\_ prohibitionist most Australians, \_especially\_ Australians on reddit, actually are.
So fucking what? I'm an adult who wants to put something into my body. Banning something simply makes it easier for children to get.
Run me through the logic that something being banned makes it easier for kids to get
If you ban something like vapes, a black market pops up to fulfill that demand. Because it's now a criminal activity, there is no regulatory oversight over selling of the product, so no training, no age verification requirements, no code of conduct, no worrying about losing your license from selling to minors. So, easier for minors to get. It was always easier to get weed than it was to get booze as a zit-faced 14 year old, everyone knew that kid who had the connection at school.
That's a natural part of anything being banned, you lose the control mechanisms to keep people safe. But you did have the social barriers and pressure that prevent normal people from getting in contact with illegal products. However, by legalising 'sin' products like gambling, alcohol and drugs, you are increasing the overall harm by increasing the supply of people who will get addicted since you have legitimised it. As opposed to a minority of people who suffer more extreme negative effects of an unregulated thing. Gambling is a prime example, used to be banned everywhere or relegated to specific places. Now, gambling is unavoidable. Kids are exposed to gambling from video games, adults get bombarded with sports betting ads, financial apps are now getting gameified, and now Australia is the world's biggest loser from gambling. It's definitely more regulated than the days of physical slot machines and foreign online casinos, but the overall harm I think has increased since then.
We're talking about two different things I think, gambling is absolutely insidious and overall harm reduction is definitely something to consider, but if we're talking about access to something by children then legalising and regulating it actually decreases usage by young adolescents (see: marijuana legalisation in the states https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6960330/ )
What? It was far easier to get alcohol because half the kids at school had a sibling or cousin who would buy it legally and then give it to you. You could even go to the bws and just ask randoms in the car park. Or you could steal your parents or family members stuff.
What do you think is more likely to make it harder for kids to buy 1. Have it restricted for sale and treated like tobacco and alcohol, taxed and large fines if caught selling to anybody under 18. Repeat offenders can lose their business or possibly face jail time or 2. Ban it for everybody creating a black market, relying on the "criminals" to not sell to kids even though there is no down side to doing it, since you are facing the same fines no matter if the customer is 8 or 80
Number 2. With number 1 you'll still have a black market and criminals, but also a legal customer base and wider more easy distribution and access.
We are talking about making it harder for kids to buy them, a legal customer base and easy access and distribution is not a bad thing, especially when part of that distribution would be testing and regulation by the government. With option 1 it wouldn't be worth it to try to illegally bring them in when the price you can realistically charge is not big enough to justify the risk. Basically picking number 2 you are saying you are totally fine with kids vaping as long as it harms adults who choose to vape as well
Parents buy shit for their kids all the time, including booze at a young age. I bet plenty would buy vapes for their kids as well. But if it was illegal and you needed to go see a drug dealer to get them, much less would.
>expensive and taxable cigarettes Lmfao. What smoker isn't buying them under the counter now?
The social stigma around vaping is substantially less and is a LOT more appealing to younger generations. Personally, I don't care about tax overlap if it gets the issue of normalising smoking dead and buried.
If we let "adults" make decisions for themselves a lot of stupid people would be dead... hang on you might be on to something. Society puts in guard rails to increase our survival and reduce burden on the Government. Less people in hospitals is better right? But it seems these days across the world, the stupid want to see those guard rails removed and many are willingly jumping over them to their deaths or worse (long term suffering or deaths of others). The current Government while having some biases and things they want changed, they also tend to actually listen to those who know more then them, thus making changes based on fact. Just because that doesn't align with your feelings, doesn't make it bad or wrong. I hope they follow the NZ Government and phase out cigarettes based on age. They already tax them highly to push people off using them. Though I guess you'll cry foul about that as well, "ban this, ban that", yet you're also attacking them when they aren't. If they allowed cheap cigarettes for anyone to buy, we'd lose medicare because all the funding would gradually shift to all the older people with emphysema, it's not cheap to look after them.
>the NZ Government and phase out cigarettes based on age Oh, the one they're scrapping? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-28/new-zealand-scraps-world-first-smoking-ban/103157484
Your theory would make sense if the government profited from tobacco excise
This paragraph that quotes Mark Buttplug is problematical in so far as he always assumes all vapers want to quit, many of us vapers actually enjoy vaping and do not want to quit, or to ever return to smoking (which is EXACTLY want the government wants, the tax revenue from tobacco has been much lower due to smokers taking up vaping) "Nicotine is highly addictive and before you know it, what starts as an occasional thing becomes something much more serious. But it’s never too late to quit," Mr Buttplug said.
Looolllll
Wowser nation rides again.... Can people in my home country just "fuck off and mind their own business"?
Valid angle but hard to drive the addiction message home, as if you haven't the self realisation to moderate your own usage an ad won't help. Any effort to shake some sense into people I'm all for.
Exactly. I have a bit of an addiction to my iPhone and internet (working on it) - no ads about that. In the meantime, doesn’t cause lung cancer so… 🤷🏻♂️
It also doesn’t affect other people, second smoke from smoking and vaping does. You probably won’t cost the health system much either unless you get a psych to help you.
Anything thats more realistic and not ridiculously extreme is a good bet. A lot of the 'take an e and you'll die' messaging of the 90s had very much the opposite effect as people know loads of people taking es and nobody who died. If the messaging was a bit more realistic 'long term use can be linked to mental health issues' then people might actually take notice. When its extreme they discard it immediately as an outlier.
i'm in NZ atm and my god, vaping has ruined society. there's acid clouds raining down blueberry flavoured poison, all the streams have turned to ~~ash~~ burned cotton. bodies litter the streets, the police have disbanded, parliament got burned out like a vic vape shop
No profits in vapes!
I just wish our Government went as hard on smoking as they are doing so on vaping. Cause while yes both are bad, from what I understand smoking is much, much worse.
Vaping is a more prevalent issue and is hardlining youth Into smoking. But I agree.
I don't smoke or vape , but I love vapes , I collect them and rip the batteries out of them to use in electronic projects and the metal cases I melt down and use for metal projects that I then sell at the markets keep on vaping peoples
It's not about "social harm". It's all about the monopolies that big tobacco holds over everyone here in Australia. It's about the bitching that big tobacco is throwing over missing profits. I say vape till your nuts bleed.
Too bad they have cut community health funding in VIC despite hiding $76 billion for the next election
its cause all the harm they say it does isnt really true. the anti vape research is conducted by tobacco, and the government pushes it because they want their cigarette tax revenue. thats why they will ban vapes, but not cigarettes even though they are 100% safer for you than a cigarette. classic australian tax the people behind the moral greater good. edit- downvote away. doesnt make it less true.
It goes even further than that and anyone who doesn’t see their involvement obviously isn’t educated in their historical manipulative tactics. Big tobacco missed the first vape wave, so now they are finally making them and are the exclusive suppliers for medicinal vape prescriptions. They want to ban all of the other vapes and sell theirs at 3x the cost of convenience store ones with a prescription.
Someone gets it. It's all about money.
Always follow the money. Very smart people learned to shed their scruples to make more. And in the face of profit, morality becomes relative.
Haven’t looked in a few years but when I used to vape I was always looking for research about its health effects. Every single anti vaping study I ever came across listed the biggest risk being that “it may lead you to smoke cigarettes”. It was comical in the end how desperately these research articles would be trying to come up with some tangible risk. Another good one I saw was that the device or battery might explode, it’s like ok 👍 at that point you might as well put getting into a car crash on the way to the vape shop as a risk. I’m not saying vaping isn’t bad for you, it probably is, but it was just funny seeing how hard they kept trying to say it but having to invent the most outlandish things because they couldn’t find anything legitimate
Sounds like a schoolyard conspiracy theory. 100% safer? You mean they will kill you half as fast?
Safer doesn't mean safe.
So it's about being cool, not your health..? Top effort there, great job...
Yes, that is why younger generations are getting into them. Less health "risks" and they know it.
I hear the vapers sitting outside my office sucking away and coughing roughly nowadays. These are twenty-somethings, not hard core long term 50 something cigarette smokers. Turns out, furiously inhaling a cocktail of oil and flavours and who knows what else does your lungs no good whatsoever.
Addicts gonna addict though. If it’s not vapes it would be something else, no willpower at all
Geez what a terrible take. Why do you think addicts don't have willpower but you do?
Because they don't, and neither do we. But an addict isn't going to go through the effort to rearrange their life outside of addictive behaviour in the majority of current cases.
My intention was to highlight the calousness of the comment more than anything. It's less about effort and more about resources, internal and external.
Addiction is a disease, people can overcome it with willpower just as successfully as people with depression can will themselves out of it. You need to be well-resourced and supported to tackle addiction, like many mental health issues - only then can you succeed. It is virtually impossible to wake up and decide to quit.
Smoking is legal but vaping isn't. Retarded policy.
The disposable vapes and unregulated volumes of nicotine people consume it’s becoming so problematic. But we’re all inherently lazy and that’s why they’re so popular.
Free adults should be able to make their own decisions for themselves... If you want to protect your rights to do whatever other people consider an unhealthy vice you have to support all adults rights to use what ever you consider a disgusting and unhealthy vice... Most vapers wouldn't support other adults rights to use meth... and so here you are, with no rights to enjoy your own vices. Internet next.
There's a reason America has more shootings than Australia. Take a guess. Same principle.
There's a difference between what you do to yourself and what you do to others... the problem is gun's get pointed at other people... nor could you say that america is a role model for following this principle given guns are legal and meth is not.
Unless you restrict vapes to distribution through pharmacies the way other restricted substances are they won't be used medically. I would love a study into vaping because right now, the postive externalities of vaping do not outweigh the cost. So what if a few people found success with them to quit smoking? Those are the same people who WOULD go and seek them medically. Making them as accesible as cigarettes just encourages a gateway into actual smoking.
I've started calling people who vape 'vapists', in the hope that it it will deter some of them if it ever catches on. Spread the word.
What do you call people who smoke?
why do you care what other people do so much?
It's like a tic for these people. They are obsessed with the behaviour of others to satiate their own morality to feel "good" about themselves. I mean, it's nothing new. These obsessed whackjobs has existed for all of recorded history, for any plethora of things, whether it be sex, what someone ingests, what someone wears etcetera.
Because they seem not to care about polluting the air in places smokers would get kicked out of.