Every day is an opportunity to make the world a better place and for the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), no day would resonate more to this saying than 1st October 2021. On this day, TGA introduced a new nicotine e-liquid regulation. The objective of the policy was not only to mitigate the intake of vaping amongst the youth but equally encourage consumption of prescribed nicotine vaping for the adults. Whether the policy has been effective or not is what we focus on in our article today.
According to Nancy Loucas, a renowned Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) expert and Executive Coordinator at Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA), Australia’s anti-vaping regime is nothing short of a policy failure. Her remarks are backed up by a report published by Dr. Colin Mendelsohn which reveals that a year after the introduction of the nicotine e-liquid regulation, the vaping culture in Australia hasn’t gotten any better. This is because of the effects that have risen as a result of the anti-vaping policy in the country.
To begin with, the youth because of the state of being already addicted to vaping and the challenges they face while trying to withdraw from the act, have found measures of continuing with vaping without a prescription. This has been through introduction of black markets. The black markets have allowed the youth to easily and cheaply acquire the drug making the vaping culture even worse since the youth now acquire the drug in an unsafe manner which in turn puts their health and largely their life at risk.
Secondly, we cannot deny that we are leaving in harsh economic times. Despite the knowledge of this, the selling price of the prescribed vaping remains relatively high. With this, the adults have been left with no choice other than to find refuge in the vapes that are being sold in the black markets. Their act is not driven by the fact that the black market vapes are less costly but also because the vapes in these markets are easy to find and access.
Similar to Nancy Loucas and Dr. Mendelsohn, it is therefore safe to conclude that the nicotine e-liquid regulation has been a failure to the Australian society. However, there are measures that can be put in place to ensure that the regulation is as effective as it was intended to be. First and foremost, the government can devise measures of doing away with the black market. This is because it is the channel that is being used to access the illegal drug. In addition to this, harsh measures should also be introduced and implemented so that those running black markets can be bought to books. Essentially, the government can also find a way to regulate the cost of the prescribed vapes to allow them to be bought by persons of all classes easily.
Whatever the case, the government has done a lot to ban the illegal vaping culture and if proper guidelines are put in place the impacts of their efforts will be largely seen and felt.
