The Federal Government’s 1 October new vaping laws, allowing behind the counter pharmacy sales of regulated therapeutic vapes without doctor script, still requires an urgent injection of ‘policy common sense’ to tackle the huge vaping black market and national nicotine consumption.
Australia’s ground-breaking approach to future vape retail sales starts this week, continues the fight against harmful tobacco smoking for over 2 million Australians, plus the hundreds and thousands of Aussie adults who use illicit, unregulated, and unsafe black market vape product.
The nation’s leading therapeutic vape manufacturer, from the fields Pharmaceuticals, said the meritorious new Federal vaping reforms now coming into place will need time to bed in.
CEO, Wilhelm David, said a rampant black market for illicit vapes remained, due to unregulated vapes being easily accessible and holding greater appeal around flavour choice for users.
This is despite escalated black market vape prices being far higher than therapeutic brands.
As an S3 product sold over the pharmacy counter and S4 product via prescription, high quality, safe, Australian Standard therapeutic vapes may be sold in just three flavours - mint, menthol, and tobacco.
Mr David said for transitioning smokers to regulated vapes, and current users of illicit vapes willing to consider a quality, nicotine or zero nicotine therapeutic vape alternative, the stark lack of flavour choice for legal vapes was counter intuitive to the national health policy goal towards no tobacco.
“Australia is a historic global leader in reducing smoking consumption,” Mr David said.
“The therapeutic vaping market now exists in Australia today to help smokers quit and move away from harmful tobacco and to transition through less harmful, regulated vaping.
“Our legitimate fear under these new rules is we’re seeing a spiralling situation where overall cigarettes and tobacco use may rise, not fall, despite the good intentions of government.
“Attracting former smokers and illicit vapers towards a safer, better, fully regulated product for smoking cessation, and distributed through pharmacy channels, requires incentive and health appeal.
“This should include offering adult fruit flavours for therapeutic vapes similar to those available in existing NRT products and accessible via pharmaceutical and retail pathways.
“Simple fruit flavours in therapeutic vapes are not colourful candy treats created to appeal to young people. There is a big difference!
“from the fields Pharmaceuticals is embracing the new rules by offering the widest portfolio of quality regulated therapeutic vape product across hundreds of pharmacies nationally.
“Our research driven, purpose-built nicotine vapes are exclusively designed for smoking cessation, setting us apart from recreational vape products and big tobacco.
“We’ll continue to proactively engage with the Federal Government, the TGA and key health stakeholders to encourage them to remain policy nimble for better future health outcome.”
Mr David said Australia’s widespread illicit vape black market remained effectively as strong as ever and the Government’s decision to limit therapeutic vape flavours is partly underpinning it.
“The decision to strictly limit therapeutic vape flavours to only three, means many ex-smokers are resorting back to the black market to access the variety of illicit flavoured vapes,” Mr David said.
“The reality is therapeutic products which are competitively priced need to be palatable and appealing to smokers and illicit vapers otherwise they won’t use them.”
As an industry leader, Mr David has previously pointed to the importance of retaining simple fruit flavours such as Mango, Blueberry and Apple in the therapeutic vape product suite for Australians.
Another hurdle for the new vaping reforms is the number of actual physical pharmacies presently stocking therapeutic vaping products, which remains low.
“To properly tackle the vape black market, therapeutic products must also be readily accessible. Pharmacies must stock them, or people will continue to alternatively source available illicit vapes.
“More needs to be done around pharmacy take-up and sale of therapeutic vapes,” Mr David said.
Key Facts:
- New vaping laws begining 1 Oct allow over-the-counter pharmacy sales of regulated therapeutic vapes.
- Despite Govt efforts, the black market for unregulated vapes remains strong due to broader flavour options.
- Limited therapeutic vape flavours (mint, menthol, tobacco) may hinder smoking cessation efforts.
- Insufficient pharmacy stock of therapeutic vapes limits accessibility for consumers.
About us:
About from the Fields Pharmaceuticals
from the fields Pharmaceuticals is an independent company and leading manufacturer of Australian standard therapeutic nicotine vaping products (NVPs) via the TGO 110 regulatory framework with its Wild By Instinct nicotine vaping brand. FTFP is headquartered in Adelaide.
https://wildbyinstinct.com/ https://ftfpharmaceutical.com/
Contact details:
Adi Stevens
Royce
0407 411 088 adi@royce.com.au