E-cigarettes in Australasia

Australia: The Australian Capital Territory today passed the Health Legislation Amendment Bill, which amends the 2008 Medicines, Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act and the 1927 Tobacco and Other Smoking Products Act to ban the sale of e-cigarettes from vending machines and implement stronger measures to enforce the ban on the sale of e-cigarettes to under-18s.

Australia: The head of the Therapeutic Goods Authority (TGA), John Skerrit, has acknowledged that the nicotine e-cigarette regulations implemented on 1st October last year have not been effective, smoking cessation specialist Colin Mendelsohn reports. Skerrit admitted that despite the requirement of a prescription to purchase nicotine-containing e-cigarettes only 10% of adult vapers have a prescription. He said a large number of low quality products hade been imported and were being illegally sold in the country. And he said that of Australia’s 130,000 registered doctors, only 1,353 had applied for authorisation to prescribe e-cigarettes.

Australia: The South Australian state government has launched a plan to reduce the use of e-cigarettes among school students by providing training and preventive campaigns, press reports. A report by the state’s commissioner for children and young people found two thirds of the 1,000 teenagers consulted had tried vaping and 25% used e-cigarettes regularly.

New Zealand: The association Action for Smokefree 2025 has submitted a paper on the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill, proposing that general retailers should be permitted to sell e-liquids in fruit and other sweet flavours, and not be limited to tobacco, mint and menthol. The bill, which aims mainly to reduce the number of smoked tobacco products, is currently under analysis by the Health Committee.

New Zealand: From tomorrow, 11th August, all retailers of vaping products must ensure the products they are selling conform to the new packaging regulations. This includes both general retailers and specialist vape stores. Among the rules are new health warnings and newly prohibited features on packaging.

Australia: More than 15,000 nicotine-containing e-cigarettes have been seized in Western Australia in an operation analysing the content of e-cigarettes that were claimed not to contain nicotine. The state authorities have put more than 3,000 retailers on notice, advising them that the sale of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes other than by a pharmacy and without a medical prescription is banned.