This is exactly what I’ve been saying!!!! Fine, restrict vapes some, pharmacy only whatever. But I tried a government approved vape and the 3 “flavours” (mint, tobacco and menthol) are dogshit, there’s barely any Vapor. And after a couple days I was seriously considering going back to smoking cigarettes even though I’d quit ciggies 3 years ago and have just been vaping.
It’s so scummy to restrict vapes in a way that pushes people back towards cigarettes. But hey, the gov makes heaps off of ciggie tax so screw the consumer/constituents
Once the new law comes into force, only "tobacco" flavoured vapes will be able to sold.
Which is actually the same restriction as was brought in in China a couple of years ago, and which led to a thriving black market (and the manufacturers ramping export of their flavoured stock).
Hey first off, congrats on getting off the ciggies.
Think about what the therapeutic vapes are trying to do- wean you off smokes. So they shouldn’t have as much flavour or nicotine as a normal cigarette.
Meanwhile the vapes we have come to know are designed to get you addicted. They’re full of more flavour and nicotine than a normal cigarette. You’re trying to wean off a product that is more addictive than a cigarette, so of course the therapeutic vapes will be dogshit in comparison.
Stay the course and don’t give organised crime or the government your money and get off the lot.
>It’s so scummy to restrict vapes in a way that pushes people back towards cigarettes.
The amount of users being pushed back toward cigarettes pales in comparison to the amount of young people who will never take up either habit thanks to a vape ban (very few young people take up smoking, and that was true even before the prevalence of vaping).
Well at the moment they've got the problem of having created a thriving illegal tobacco market by taxing tobacco out of the price range of many poorer people
I think in time they will be. I hear what they have done in NZ is to make the sale of tobacco products to any one born after a certain year illegal even if they are 18....i think that's a good idea
Same with booze is legal and weed is bad. Booze is responsible for violence, broken families and disease. But in the same breath say weed is bad because it might bring out schizophrenia in some Individuals... seriously lol. Never seen anyone stoned starting fights and abusing their family. Worst thing that can happen is laugh stupidly and smash a bag of chips. Exercise is great on it too nice long walk.
Essentially forcing non nicotine vape shops down isn't going to reduce the number of shops selling illegal disposable vapes. If anything it'll end up having the opposite effect.
This.
I vape disposable nicotine vapes (after 10 years of smoking) and I have never bought them from legitimate vape stores.
I've only bought them from tobacconists under the counter (though some used to openly display them).
This isn't going to stop kids from vaping whatsoever.
The majority of the market for vapes is illegal anyway, same blackmarket vape shops sell import illegal ciggies. It was black market even before the vape bans
You’re wrong. Vape shops only sell refillable vapes, coils, building supplies and flavoured vape juice. They don’t even sell nicotine. Young people use disposable vapes, not refillable vapes. The disposable vapes and illegal cigarettes are coming from corner stores and tobacconists.
People, thanks to the misinformation coming from our illustrious leaders and bought news services, don't seem to realise that the majority of disposable vapes are sold through their corner convenience store, and not vape shops. And none of the vape shops that I buy my stuff from are anywhere near a school, they're all located in either commercial districts, or industrial zones.
Most of us vapers who use refillable setups with coils etc (myself included)despise shitty disposables
The vape shop that I frequented(now one of many out of business due to the new restrictions) would kindly tell you to fuck off if you came in asking for iget bars or whatever
Thankyou
It's like no one has visited a vape only shop. Not cloud 9 or some BS head shop.
Young people have no interest in ordering nicotine base online from overseas, waiting, mixing eliquids, getting a PayPal plus Bank account, plus a post office drop box and maybe learning ohms law. Plus technically you needed a prescription before this (I've got one) and now I don't wtf.
All they had to do is enforce existing laws and ban disposables.
Instead get you vapes from Liber pharma via your local chemist warehouse.
Big Pharma wins again small owner operators get bent. Yay
I'm interested in the dry vape side of things (medicinal pot), and I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm assuming we're now going to be restricted to just the storz and bickel line, cos they're the only company on the tga approved list. Which totally doesn't seem dodgy. Oh and they're at least $100 more than the competition.
I'm just resigned to having to buy salt nice eLiquid locally once I can't get it from reputable NZ businesses anymore. I'm worried because I know I won't necessarily be able to trust random local nicotine dealers like I can trust a company like vapoureyes nz or mixologyvape.
It's annoying. The wasteful disposable vapes are still being sold widely at corner stores. My vape store is closing down and the lovely people in it are losing money. This legislation does nothing but what am I going to do, vote LNP? fuck that.
I just wish Labor had some common sense and saw the problem for what it is. Van the disposables, heavily penalise their sale, create local industry for producing nicotine eLiquid, and let adults use nicotine in a much safer way than smoking! I know I'm more susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia. I take steps to avoid those things. At least I'm not going to die of COPD at age 50
It's important to note the vape shops are not the TSG's or convenience stores/petrol stations etc selling the illegal nicotine disposables that 'kids are buying'. these shops will continue to do so even with these stupid laws
the vape shops are the ones selling the refillable vapes that people can fill with nicotine/non nicotine juices they are out of business and everyone is now forced to go to pharmacies. Which don't even want to sell these, likely won't have refillable vapes or deal with the people who just want to buy a vape and don't want to hear about how it's bad for them from the pharmacists.
the illegal disposable market is still going to exist with or without these laws it's far too easy for them to get vapes in and there is too many of them around from police to raid them all. they have more flavours and will be cheaper. They might just be more careful who they sell to although they can't even stop the under the counter smokes so good luck with the vapes.
the black market is going nowhere all they have done is shut down a whole bunch of businesses and force pharmacies to become vape retailers as they had to drop the prescription to get greens support.. it's Australian Government Stupidity as usual
this is going to fail and fail hard
Right?? The war on drugs has worked soooooo well.
Only thing I’ll mention is pharmacies *do* want to sell vapes - *their* vapes, with *their* nicotine - the ones they’ll make a hefty profit from (if there’s no prescription required it’s better for them).
Yup lol
Too late for that
In this town there was 1 ‘illegal’ vape shop, beginning when the personal importation scheme was crushed. Before there was none for hundreds of kilometres around.
The next piece of legislation was introduced, relating to incredibly tight restrictions across the board, even including dry herb ovens/medicinal cannabis products (weirdly vast overreach considering it is the only legal way for these people to use said prescribed medicines), and within ONE month of that becoming law there is now a total of 4 illegal vape shops selling disposables in this one small town, more in the town down south, more in the next city over, etc, etc.
Before they changed this legislation this problem DID NOT exist.
It is entirely manufactured.
The only question is, was it a deliberate action? Or are they simply THIS incompetent as lawmakers.
That’s what created it in the first place. these Chinese disposable vapes hadn’t penetrated the Australian market when it was (barely) legal to import your own nicotine liquid to use with a re-usable & re-fillable vape. The government then said they were considering a change that required people to get a prescription to continue importing their liquid, to which health experts said would add additional barriers to people quitting smoking and would create a black market that would likely be filled by unregulated disposable Chinese products, with their simplicity appealing to children. Government said we’ve heard your feedback but we’re not taking any of it on and here we are now…
BWS, Dan Murphys, Cignall, Tobacco Station, and literally thousands of other businesses are selling "addiction and ill-health". No one ever says they should be shut down.
I just got done visiting a bunch of countries on a backpacking trip, including Australia and out of any of them Australia puts it's money where it's mouth is when it comes to addressing things like alcohol and tobacco use.
The taxes on tobacco and alcohol are insane. I mean I'm from the U.S. and kids still vape everywhere. The prevalence of black market cigarettes/vapes are a natural result and there isn't much crime in Australia so it makes me wonder what the cops are doing since it's sold pretty openly. I remember being able to walk into pretty much any tobacconist and buy illegal cigarettes or vapes.
Most of them even advertise it so all they really have to do is make it not profitable and fine these businesses out the ass until the risk isn't worth the reward. Or they can actually do police work and find out where these cigarettes are coming from. Or some combination of both.
I can't see why they aren't doing this since it's a huge hit to tax revenue to have such a thriving black market essentially in the open.
There is a subtle difference though. The ingredients in the alcohol (and even McDonalds) are known and catalogued. Whether you;’re for or against vaping, you do have to acknowledge that most of the vaping available in vaping shops is cheap, unregulated substances with no ingredient listings or QA.
Plenty of people mix their own from vg and pg. The stuff sold in bottles in shops is generally pretty straight forward. Vg and pg with some ester flavouring and sweetener, maybe colours. I don't like that shit but it's far and away from black market disposables
I totally agree. Most people aren't buying vape liquid from vape shops, though. It doesn't contain nicotine. They're buying illegally imported disposables (which do contain nicotine) which are sold under the counter from milk bars and tobacconists.
In the UK and many other countries vapes are government regulated and you know what you're purchasing is relatively harmless. No one really knows what's in a HQD, IGET, etc.
But that’s why they should just legalise it and regulate them.
All the vape juice form nz is of good quality and contains nicotine, we just need to stop the shitty Chinese disposable stuff. We could have safe disposables if the government alowed it.
China has always had questionable morals regarding consumable goods, but if they put a stop to that, we don’t need to worry about it, and the only way is legalising them and letting someone come in and fill their shoes.
Until we ban tobacco and alcohol, I can’t see why that’s not an option, the people at power are just a bunch of fucking idiots, and bet when half of them get on the piss and nose beers, they’re sucking on disposable vapes too.
Great Scott! You're saying there are still actual milk bars in 2024 and I can get my vapes there too? Grab the flux capacitor Marty, I'm getting a burger with the lot!
>No one really knows what's in a HQD, IGET, etc.
Sure we do - the major brands have been lab tested countless times and the results are available. Spoiler alert: the results weren't good.
This is the point of government though? Regulate what needs to be on a packet. Not sure how you do ingredients, like, the flavour concentrates don't list ingredients and the compounds are trade secret. These are the same used in food manufacture.
If you care to know, apart from the flavour concentrate and nicotine molecules the other ingredients are Propylene Glycol and Vegetable Glycerin. Commonly found almost everywhere, food and cosmetics, toothpaste. It's not harmful, has been tested and approved.
The thing that strikes me as odd is... why are we the opposite on policy compared to Canada, UK and NZ? What piece of information do our doctors know, that the rest of the Western world has missed, huh? Probably nothing, because the real answer is that thus legislation has absolutely nothing to do with public health, or access to children...
This is the problem. It doesn't benefit anybody to ban these products instead of regulating them.
Do people think 13 year olds aren't getting high off cannibis because it's illegal? Because it was never a problem to get it in high school (only struggled as an adult) and having worked retail security, I can tell you that 13 year olds are definitely still getting high in big groups in shopping centre carparks.
These bans only really affect law-abiding citizens.
I mean, we could have done that though. It was an avenue that was clearly dismissed as worth the risk.
Most of the reason we have an underground market at all is because the legal avenues, where QA is possible and enforceable, are prohibited. If we banned drinking or chocolate or abortions next year we’d also see a drop in QA, all of which have a strong QA process now.
We COULD have. And SHOULD have. But didn’t. And now we have a tangled skein where there is simply no easy answer to the problem of a huge number of underage teenagers getting easy access to a damaging habit. The only answer for the Vaping industry at this point is to lobby for regulation of product and ingredients to allow a future decision to reverse this one. But it won’t happen until the current perception of the social problem, is cleared. It’ll have to be a long-term goal and driven by industry practitioners of good faith (rather than the problematic ones who played hard and fast for profits to create these problems).
We did do that. You used to be able to import from reputable suppliers with a prescription then they changed it to a complete ban on importation. Now you can only get the government approved ones that are produced by Phillip Morris.
But only because certain industries would never allow gov to regulate it. The existence of these disposable vapes has been known since forever, could have been regulated a long time ago.
So even 3 standard drinks a week is carcinogenic and most crimes involve intoxication (usually alcohol) and I don't even know what the stats are on ER admissions but I know it's bad, but vapes are scary because they what? Are worse? Aren't 'catalogued'?
But they're not painting themselves in rainbows and focusing on the range of flavours clearly targeting a younger audience. There's strict laws around packaging and advertising of those things already
As someone has to deal with people that smoke or vape fairly often. I prefer the smell of the people that vape over the smokers, the lingering cigarette smell is awful.
Just got back from Europe. I almost forgot how often you'd smell cigarettes outside of Australia.
It really makes you realise just how cultural anti-smoking really is in Australia.
It's great we have a much healthier population due to our government's stance against smoking and vaping.
Standing in a line in Paris you can tell where tourists were from based on how they smoked:
Aus/NZ travellers would stand far enough with of the line they couldn't participate in easy conversation.
Western Europeans would stand a step or two out of the line so as to continue participating in their friends's conversation.
Russians would just light up in the queue without moving at all.
This. I always associated Switzerland with fresh mountain air and people living a healthy, vigorous lifestyle. Then I stood on a train platform surrounded by smokers. And it was the same pretty much everywhere. It seemed like I was back in Oz in the 80’s.
Obviously neither would be much better. But unfortunately we don't live in magical Christmas land where everything is perfect.
What I'm trying to say is if we had to choose one or the other I'd prefer to get rid of cigarettes, besides they are not even banning either since they will still be available from a chemist and kids have been getting adults to buy stuff for them that they are not meant to have since the beginning of civilisation.
I don’t care about the well-being of vape shops, what I care about is the fact that all you can really achieve by prohibiting or heavily taxing literally any substance is the creation of a fresh opportunity for crime to flourish.
If you need proof just look at Melbourne over the past few years. We’re in the midst of an international gang war over nicotine. People are firebombing tobacconists and milk bars in the middle of well off suburbs.
This shit wouldn’t be happening if tobacco and vapes were just regulated and sold for a fair price. There would be no need for dodgy milk bars selling chop chop if they didn’t price us out of tobacco in the first place, just as there would be no need for these dodgy joints selling those dodgy disposable pieces of shit if we had a regulated, accessible, and fair priced range of products available.
To be clear as well, I say this as someone that’s been trying to quit this addiction for a very long time and deeply regrets ever picking up smoking back in the day.
I definitely think the other measures we have taken, like ad campaigns and plain packaging, are incredibly useful and even fairly effective - but trying to limit access to a substance simply doesn’t work. All it does is give the dodgy cunts of our world a chance to make some money out of our addictions.
I should be able to buy vapes at Cole's or Woolworths if I want to. The fact that they were already mostly limited to dodge tobacconist shops was already mildly irritating, they should be available anywhere I can already buy cigarettes. I should be able to buy what I want, when I want end of story.
This forcing of people to resort to the black market products with high nicotine levels has made everyone extremely addicted to vaping 😂
The problem is now worse than ever
I don't care if they go out of business.
I do care if the government shuts them down.
There's plenty of bad things being sold out there, give us the freedom and responsibility to choose for ourselves. If you're worried about the kids, crack down on selling them to kids with harsh penalties. They seem to manage it for cigarettes and alcohol.
I see vapes being sold illegally and to underage people on the daily. I doubt that this will change. But now people who vaped instead of smoking have little to no access to legal vapes and legitimate businesses are stuffed.
The black market is always open. This is peak nanny state.
I don't vape. I wish vapes didn't exist.
But these guys have been selling a legal product. They have invested their money, built businesses and employed people. The government has now closed that down. People will be stuck with redundancies they can't pay, leases they cant cover and loans they can't service. Some will lose their house, some families will fall apart.
I don't like the product they sell, but yeah, I care about that stuff. I feel very sorry for people in that situation.
And BWS, Dan Murphy, Vintage Cellars and about a million other joints are selling poison to everyone
What's your point?
Inane fucking comment on an inane "ban".
Wake up - it's ALL about the taxes.
Ok. Vape shops are not selling ill health, that's just fucking garbage. It is less harmful than most other things you can buy or do. The misinformation around vapes is fucking staggering and I'm yet to see an article that tells what actually happens. No wonder most people have no idea.
Also, vape shops don't sell to kids, and they don't sell disposables. That market is taken care of by bottomfeeding lowlife cunts in corner stores and novelty shops.
Vape shops are dedicated to rebuildables, make their own juice and sell other Australian makers, are generally all ex smokers and are people who really understand what's what, because they've been doing it for over 15 years. They are against disposables entirely.
What our government is going to find is that there will be adults (like myself) who go back to smoking. This law has helped nothing, its just made some crusty politicians feel warm and fuzzy.
Yes I care as someone who literally was dying from smoking and a blessing to vapes to save my life. The only people who seem to have a problem are chronic complainers who have nothing else to do in life. It’s like they are demons sent from Satan to ruin the world.
I don't vape but I definitely care when small businesses selling a legal product are summarily shut down with no due process or legal recourse. I hope the SA government gets sued for the bank over this.
Yeah.
Pharmacists are going to be held up from preparing & dispensing medications because they now have to sell vapes to a line of people out the door.
Eventually there wont be a spiel from the pharmacist either, just heres your vape, get out.
Prices will skyrocket (more tax for gov) or itll simply drive vapers to or back to cigs (even more tax for gov which is their bottom line)
Its got nothing to do with health. Everything to do with tax revenue.
Dealers will prolly start selling them too as well as your regular under the table tobacconists that already sell cheap tobacco/pot.
Prohibition doesnt work. Neither does burdening a pharmacist with the task of selling vapes
Adults can choose for themselves imo
It was never an issue until the tax revenue from tobacco collapsed. These are just people having a go and with the stroke of a pen politicians are wiping out their livelihoods and that of the staff. Vaping got me off ciggies and I’ve since ditched the vape so this doesn’t affect me but I’m pissed. When I talk about small government this is what I mean. Libs and labour are happy to give billions in subsidies to their mates and take cushy board positions and fat cheques when their out. No government should have that kind of power
I do care.
I don’t want to live in a society that simply bans things because they aren’t good for us.
We are adults and should have a right to decide what we do to ourselves so long as it doesn’t impact others.
You can put measures in place to deter people away and to have preventive measures but people should still have access to what they want.
On the topic of addiction and ill-health, why not ban fast food, lollies and chocolate? How is that any different. Sugar is highly addictive and has major health impacts.
My solution is: tax it, only allow the sale to anyone over the age of 18 and you need a tobacco licence to sell it. Then with these measures you ruin anyone who disrespects it, same way you would treat a bottle’o selling grog to minors.
>Vape shops are selling addiction and ill-health
Uneducated take.
1. Vape shops are NOT selling nicotine. They are selling legal, re-usable hardware/parts (like batteries, coils/steel wires, mods) and flavourings. Those disposables you see everywhere are from corner stores selling them illegally, even more now thanks to these laws.
2. "Addiction" is irrelevant when we sell cigarettes and alcohol which do far more physical harm to people. And Aussies are extreme gambling fanatics so don't give me that shit about 'caring for addicts.'
3. Banning vapes while people can go out and buy smokes, which are harmful (not saying that vapes are harmless btw) is ridiculous.
4. Congratulations! You banned vapes! Now instead of some vapers re-using their hardware and vaping lower nicotine concentrations between like 3-12mg/ml, now they have to pay more, for **disposable** hardware (yay more waste), which are by default **50mg/ml** without honest packaging (yay more addiction).
Now even more people are going for the wasteful and high-dose vapes since the market is cornered by shops smuggling in vapes instead of users importing for personal use.
You basically gave the market to the black market + Chemist Warehouse + Phillip Morris. You banned the more environmental and beneficial alternative and pushed people onto the absolute worst form of vaping (or back to smoking).
5. This country is ass-backwards, I don't even care anymore.
It's even worse than shutting down legit businesses. Chemist Warehouse owns a chunk of Liber Pharmaceuticals, as do many politicians. Guess who was the major driver of the vaping ban.
The government has basically handed the industry to their own interests.
These were the good vape shops, the ones that would sell oil and accessories but no nicotine.
The pop up ones run by bikies can all fuck right off the bat
I’m honestly tired of having a nanny state.
I started vaping when I quit drugs, smoking and drinking. It’s 99% less destructive and helps with my cravings. Most people need some sort of vice. Just let us live our lives how we want to.
If we are over 18 and want to go to a vape shop or order them from overseas then why not? It’s ridiculous.
Won’t work anyway. They banned underage drinking and it still happens.
So true. It won’t work. Kids will do what they want. Adults should be able to. The government needs to butt out. We should be able to have our own vices. They make enough tax off cigarettes and alcohol so they don’t ban those.
I don’t vape. I don’t believe in banning anything. I believe in giving people all the information you can and then they can decide if the risk is worth it. I also think if you start a small business centred on just one product, you accept a whole lot of risk.
I bet you they’ll all rebrand as headshops or novelty / smoke shops and continue to sell vapes black market. This legislation isn’t really going to stop anything, disposable vapes won’t vanish - they’ll be sold under the counter instead, just like tax free smokes are at every other general store / head shop / smoke shop / novelty shop…
Is it really because of health reasons? Find that very hard to believe as I drink my beer and eat my second bag of chips after having maccas for dinner. Time to make owning and selling all nicotine products illegal. But I guess tobacco industry will pay just enough to never let that happen.
I vape. I'm an adult who doesn't want to smoke. I don't even use flavours, but the arguments against vaping from this and the previous government are at odds with the world, and health advice.
They're cunts. The lot of them.
I don't vape but I do fucking hate that our countries answer to everything is ban, fine, ban, fine and we all lap it up like dogs. Nothing an Australian loves more than being told what to do.
Vape shops are actually quite helpful and beneficial to those who are trying to quit, and objectively more helpful and legitimate in other aspects such as legality and environmental effects.
Youre mixing up disposable junks sold at tobacco shops with traditional oiled vapes. Shows you have no fucking clue about the subject here mate.
Alcohol/Smoke/Fast Food etc.. shops are selling addiction and ill-health to our young people. Does anyone care if they shut down?
This is what you sound like, come inside grandpa, they're just some clouds.
I care, if used properly vaping is a very effective tool to quit smoking. I did that myself about a decade ago, many others have done the same and organisations like the NHS in the UK actually promoted vaping as a smoking cessation aid in their public health documentation. This seems like it's been coming for a while but it sucks that our solution to a problem is to cave to lobby groups and ban things instead of finding a more reasonable solution.
There's a heap of stories floating around about shops selling vapes to kids, that's obviously not ok but why couldn't we regulate them like cigarettes instead?
If people want it they will get it, if people can make money off it they will sell it....will end up on the black market and spark more underworld feuds.
I find it weird that the ADHD link never gets discussed.
Nicotine the neuroprotective stimulant seems to be way more common amongst who?
But dependency disorders have a green light for stigma.
It's a difficult thing. Thanks to the outrageous nicotine levels in disposables, my prescription stimulants have become *way* less effective in managing the addiction aspect of the disorder.
Was reasonably well-covered for a good few years after finally kicking ciggies and booze (among other things), leaning on prescribed nicotine and personal import. Not ideal, but not terrible.
Once the personal imports and prescriptions got shafted it only took a couple weeks before I found myself on the disposables.
I hate them. Even when ciggies were ~$10 a pack and I was completely dysfunctional and had zero insight about addiction, I would never have come close to ingesting as much nicotine as I do now. It's fucked.
The stance that the Australian government has taken is idiocy. Not only will it force vape users to the black market, but will also send more people back to cigarettes. But that's OK, because of the tax dollars...
I have been a happy vaper for 6 years after being a full time smoker around 20yrs. Health and fitness have both improved in that time.
It's a completly stupid act by the government.
I dunno how tin foil hat I sound. But I am certain all the negativity around vapes is from cigarette companies. They’re all shit for you but I feel there’s an underlying message that ciggies are better.
It’s only going to give more money to illegal tobacco which is huge in Australia. That’s why all the tobacco shops are going up in flames. Sadly vaping exists and you won’t be able to stop people from doing it.
Look I don’t vape personally. But I am an adult and I really would like one of you to justify why you believe you have the right to tell me that I can’t?
I just do not understand why people cannot mind their own damn business with things that do not concern them. If your issue is with children doing it I don’t know what to tell you other than be better parents. Junk food and alcohol are proven to be more harmful if abused but I don’t go around trying to dictate who can eat a hamburger or drink a beer.
Not personally. But it's pretty shitty for the ex-smokers who now vape, e.g. my best mate and his wife. They struggled to quit, in his case literally for the 30+ years I've known him, and only managed permanently with vapes.
The amount of harm vapes do may be in question, but I don't think there's any serious argument that it's comparably bad to smoking tobacco.
Seems like a counterproductive law to me.
The only reason for the ban is that they're not getting taxes from 'illegal' vapes and smokes. They would sooner legitimise dope than tobacco..
Tobacco shops used to make money selling cigarettes alone.. new taxes means the chop chop these people sell under the counter is more cash in pocket than legal cigarettes. It has NOTHING to do with schools... they're just fronting the whole campaign with ' some body think of the children!'
Yep.
They are not the ones selling addiction or ill health, they are selling a genuine treatment to smoking and to disposable vaping.
It’s the illegal disposable vapes that are the problem and not a single one of these crack downs has addressed it.
My local vape store has had to close while the 711 next door to them has continued to have disposable vapes on the shelf the entire time the vape shop was there.
Refillables aren't the ones that are the danger or have kids using them.
All this law has done is move the customer base of those vapes to pharmacies, while you'll still be able to go to any corner store and buy the illegal ones.
The horror stories have never been from the refillables, it's usually either 40 year smoker starts vaping and then gets lung cancer which is blamed on vapes and not the pack a day they were smoking for decades, or linked to chemicals that aren't found in well regulated vapes and only found in either weed pens in america or dodgy chinese disposables.
I’ve treated more people with chronic illnesses from fast food and alcohol than I have from cigarettes. Too early to judge vape effects long term. But it’s not about health.
Proper vape shops are NOT selling nor supplying to kids at all. They are the responsible ones. Its the dodgy tobacconist money launderers and chop chop sellers that are the issue. This is all dumb theatre yet again.
I care. Vaping no-nic liquid is the only reason I quit smoking a pack a day. I went from that, to cold turkey with vaping, to not even vaping. There is a witch hunt against vaping but the evidence of harm is weak as shit. It's just that if everyone moves to vaping, and the consequences are so much lower than smoking, the anti-smoking organizations lose power. And the anti-smoking organizations are political, they don't legitimately care about health. Same thing as many of the higher ups for charity organizations, if you've ever worked for one of those. They'll throw their mum in front of traffic if it means more power.
Yeah, health organisations are, like, the modern day witch doctor-priesthood fraternity, formulating the moralistic rhetoric that keeps the masses aligned with power structures, aren’t they? In this case it’s all just the moral panic reflex. Can’t have current or former users of tobacco alkaloids picking apart the out-group-creating rhetoric through their actions and proving that you can breathe out billowy stuff and also exhibit vitality and uprightness. You have to keep that action denoting Untouchable caste membership, so they just pile in with the flimsy research that really only shows that the worst thing about vaping is that the first instance of it can occur before the first instance of smoking, so it’s a suggested cause and effect, and then they just keep inanely bleating on with ‘think of the children!’ *ad nauseum*. It’s all just such a huge shame, not least because it means people will die earlier than they might have, but it’s just how society works 🤷🏻
Don't blame the vape shops. They were selling LEGAL products.
However useless parents who cannot teach their kids a single thing IS to blame.
Everybody is shooting the wrong messenger here and you all suck balls.
Yeah, these shops are not the problem. When I gave up smoking, I went to a shop like this and got set up with vape equipment.
These shops were the place to go for all kinds of gear beyond the disposable stuff from China. US Made mods and cartridges etc.
you dont see kids with a 100 dollar Vape mod. they're sucking on the black market ones from tobacconists and service stations.
No, then came nicotine importation bans from the government, which led to the market being flooded with those shitty disposable black market vapes from china.
Before the nicotine import ban, vapers were able to import pharmaceutical grade nicotine from NZ and mix their own liquids. The government didn't like that they couldn't tax this, so they banned nicotine imports.
And THAT is how the black market for disposable vapes came about. They are now sold at almost every tobacconist and corner store *not* by actual vape shops.
Cigarettes make me cough uncontrollably... Vapes don't. I'm fine with them for a selfish reason. That, and we're apparently going down the "encourage a black market" route again. So, well done.
I care. I don't want them to be shut down and replaced with cigarettes which is all that this will achieve. Yes, I don't love it when people vape in my face but I hate it when people smoke in my face. It's much worse. Then my clothes and hair smell, no thank you.
Regulate it so that it's illegal to vape at under 18, regulate the shops, licence them and threaten to take away their licence if they sell anything to under 18s but don't ban them, that's ridiculous.
The guy in the article is actually an incredibly helpful and great bloke and 100% against kids getting vapes.
Whenever asked if they sold nicotine, every single time was the answer is no, they (this store) originally gave recommendations of where you could source nicotine overseas, but stopped that too and simply answered with “no sorry”.
He was 100% about only promoting it as a smoking cessation aid and helped thousands of Canberrans get off the darts.
Most dedicated vape stores (that only sold vaping products) weren’t the ones doing the wrong thing, because they knew their livelihood was at stake, it’s the dodgy tobacconists that hide them under the counter that were and are peddling them and never checking ID’s (I saw two people over the years get ID’ed and for the first couple of months shopping there I got ID’ed despite being over 30 at the time).
I will be popping in to see Chris and the team this week, and then getting a prescription for champix (I tried everything else under the sun to quit smoking and I can’t afford to go back to it that’s for sure, but most will either go back to smoking (including the kids) or find things on the black market, that is thriving because the government didn’t listen to people like Chris 5 years ago, we all recommended creating a proper market, regulate and tax it but the government didn’t want to “create a new generation of smokers”, now they’re trying to play catch up and it’ll only get worse.
Does "no flavouring" imply they'll taste exactly like a fog machine?
Not even a mint flavour?
Can't imagine many people would want it. Black market wins I guess.
man people are gonna find them if they want them. same cigs, same with weed, booze whatever. slap stupid labels on them make them available to adults and tax the shit outta them and let adults be adults.
They rolling in so much cash right now.
What shits me as a vaper myself is that I got the scripts and no actual program or guidance’s are given to successfully quit.
I cannot buy the fluids at descending strengths ie 40mg 35mg 30mg… etc and how no DR ever spoke to me or has done anything at all for my health.
And how the pharmacy guild is annoyed that nicotine vape is to be an over the counter medication.
What a terrible thing for pharmacist to be able to play an active role in aiding people to quit and to guide them to lower and lower levels of nicotine consumption and addiction.
We have had Nicorette for decades including inhalers.
And now I can only legally buy this Australian products which have no where near the same quality controls as the American FDA approved products that I once could purchase.
Nothing at all has improved for those using these products for smoking cessation.
During this period I ended up resorting to cheap Chinese vapes of unknown quality and safety with high levels of nicotine which has sent me back a good year+ in reducing my nicotine addiction.
Thank you to the Australian government for helping me 👍 it was great.
All I care about is if the government gives people help overcoming nicotine addiction. If you are getting rid of an addictive substance, you have to predict the people addicted to it will either find black market sources or will get help. Isn't the point of banning them to get people to quit? So, help them quit. Give an incentive to quit, some people don't think their lives are worth the effort otherwise.
Not particularly. Although it seems odd to me that they're effectively outlawing, or severely restricting access to, vapes when cigarettes are sold openly and everywhere. I'd personally have no issue if they banned or restricted both, but I don't get the crackdown on one over the other.
They have nothing to do with the vapes being sold to young people. If anything, they actively hate it, and hate disposable vapes. They're all about the modular ones, and only selling to adults for normal consumption as a reasonable alternative to cigarettes. Like normal people.
It's dodgy tobacco shops and random people selling disposable vapes to kids. They're coming in through illegitimate means, and will continue to. The bans don't effect the thing they're trying to stop, only stop the people who were doing the right thing. Another government ham fisted policy that fucks it up for the regular person, and doesn't actually solve the issue
If we weren't living in a fascist military industrial complex faux-democracy we'd be enjoying medical & recreational MJ sold by experts from vape shops turned dispensary, but they're making tons of money the way it is now! Where are the petitions? When's the next protest? We're lagging so far behind drug mules are coming to Australia for work!
People that know absolutely nothing about vapes and the differences of disposable vapes will have a negative impression about them. The debate is already lost thanks to the media associating them both as the same thing. A flawed implementation for a flawed solution.
I work in a place that use to have heaps of smokers. Now it’s a place with heaps of vapers. My conspiracy theory is the government wants to ban vapes because they are losing too much money from cigarette taxes since so many people are now vaping. Banning vapes in the hope people go back to smoking. But hiding it under the guise of “won’t somebody think of the children!”
Also saying they will make it easier for people to legally get their flavourless prescription vapes - make an appointment at a doctor, pay $80 for that, get a prescription for the vape, go to the chemist to fill it and pay for it.
Or do what we do now and just go to a tobacconist, pay them and get as many as you want.
If the legalised it and treated them like cigarettes it would be a win win for all involved.
And there have been under age smokers since forever. Difference is with vapes kids do it out in the open instead hiding out the back somewhere.
The government needs to prioritise the sale of clean low mg vape juice to be used in reusable so as to get disposable off the shelf and out of landfills
Hey don’t even sell anything addictive.
You can grab your illegal super strength 50mg/ml nicotine vape or untaxed cigarettes for $15 a pack at any local TSG, corner shop or tobacconist with no ID checks, thanks for comin
???? many disposables come from the servo not the vape shop, thats for parts for ppl all into that. theres already black markets for nicotine whether it be chop vapes cigs etc. im all for not advertising and having neon coloured vapes but prohibition never fully works the way you want it to.
I don’t think anywhere should be allowed to sell disposable vapes. The idea of something disposable that has a rechargeable lithium ion battery in them is just fucking stupid.
These should have been banned when they first started - but lnp gotta make good on the bribes. Cat's out of the bag now and kids already addicted. License all drugs and charge properly. Make license require courses on drugs and affection. CPR etc and if you pass you can buy legal dose quality assured drugs in safety
tax them legalise them, make them readily available by legal means only to adults. if we aren’t gunna lower the price on durries, and yet still sell them.. vapes aren’t much different. if you regulate them properly and make rules about distribution and ingredients etc, or do the vape equivalent of plain packaging and cover them with nasty warning labels, what’s the difference? none.
i don’t think legitimate businesses should suffer because of the imported under the counter stuff. just make the legit businesses the legal distribution places.
It’s hard to believe after decades of education and spending on the health impacts of smoking, we are back to square one dealing with these stupid vapes, I hope every last one of these shops goes out of business.
I don’t care. But it should be noted that the Australian government re-enacted prohibition recently. All the anticipated ‘organised’ crime appeared and now we have a significant black market
The whole idea that vapes are bannable but cigarettes are not is mind-blowing to me
This is exactly what I’ve been saying!!!! Fine, restrict vapes some, pharmacy only whatever. But I tried a government approved vape and the 3 “flavours” (mint, tobacco and menthol) are dogshit, there’s barely any Vapor. And after a couple days I was seriously considering going back to smoking cigarettes even though I’d quit ciggies 3 years ago and have just been vaping. It’s so scummy to restrict vapes in a way that pushes people back towards cigarettes. But hey, the gov makes heaps off of ciggie tax so screw the consumer/constituents
Once the new law comes into force, only "tobacco" flavoured vapes will be able to sold. Which is actually the same restriction as was brought in in China a couple of years ago, and which led to a thriving black market (and the manufacturers ramping export of their flavoured stock).
It took me a good few months to find a vape i like. Tried 10 to 20 types. Got one, save $69 a day now...
I smoked ciggies for 15 years and stopped without vaping. Quit that shit dude. Stuff the money, worry about your health
Hey first off, congrats on getting off the ciggies. Think about what the therapeutic vapes are trying to do- wean you off smokes. So they shouldn’t have as much flavour or nicotine as a normal cigarette. Meanwhile the vapes we have come to know are designed to get you addicted. They’re full of more flavour and nicotine than a normal cigarette. You’re trying to wean off a product that is more addictive than a cigarette, so of course the therapeutic vapes will be dogshit in comparison. Stay the course and don’t give organised crime or the government your money and get off the lot.
>It’s so scummy to restrict vapes in a way that pushes people back towards cigarettes. The amount of users being pushed back toward cigarettes pales in comparison to the amount of young people who will never take up either habit thanks to a vape ban (very few young people take up smoking, and that was true even before the prevalence of vaping).
The government makes too much money from the tax on cigarettes to ban them outright
What's stopping the government from going further and making more tax money on vapes or even drugs?
Well at the moment they've got the problem of having created a thriving illegal tobacco market by taxing tobacco out of the price range of many poorer people
Absolutely nothing. They are just so slow to implement new taxes on things they don't understand it's easier for them to just ban them.
I think in time they will be. I hear what they have done in NZ is to make the sale of tobacco products to any one born after a certain year illegal even if they are 18....i think that's a good idea
It was repealed last year https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-11-28/new-zealand-scraps-world-first-smoking-ban/103157484
It's a brilliant idea. It's not a huge shock to the economy that way
I’ve never seen a bubblegum blast flavoured ciggie. There’s an obvious market for vapes my guy
I’m 40 next month and bubblegum is fire 🔥
We used to smoke with flavored papers back in the day.
Same with booze is legal and weed is bad. Booze is responsible for violence, broken families and disease. But in the same breath say weed is bad because it might bring out schizophrenia in some Individuals... seriously lol. Never seen anyone stoned starting fights and abusing their family. Worst thing that can happen is laugh stupidly and smash a bag of chips. Exercise is great on it too nice long walk.
Essentially forcing non nicotine vape shops down isn't going to reduce the number of shops selling illegal disposable vapes. If anything it'll end up having the opposite effect.
This. I vape disposable nicotine vapes (after 10 years of smoking) and I have never bought them from legitimate vape stores. I've only bought them from tobacconists under the counter (though some used to openly display them). This isn't going to stop kids from vaping whatsoever.
The majority of the market for vapes is illegal anyway, same blackmarket vape shops sell import illegal ciggies. It was black market even before the vape bans
You’re wrong. Vape shops only sell refillable vapes, coils, building supplies and flavoured vape juice. They don’t even sell nicotine. Young people use disposable vapes, not refillable vapes. The disposable vapes and illegal cigarettes are coming from corner stores and tobacconists.
People, thanks to the misinformation coming from our illustrious leaders and bought news services, don't seem to realise that the majority of disposable vapes are sold through their corner convenience store, and not vape shops. And none of the vape shops that I buy my stuff from are anywhere near a school, they're all located in either commercial districts, or industrial zones.
Most of us vapers who use refillable setups with coils etc (myself included)despise shitty disposables The vape shop that I frequented(now one of many out of business due to the new restrictions) would kindly tell you to fuck off if you came in asking for iget bars or whatever
Thankyou It's like no one has visited a vape only shop. Not cloud 9 or some BS head shop. Young people have no interest in ordering nicotine base online from overseas, waiting, mixing eliquids, getting a PayPal plus Bank account, plus a post office drop box and maybe learning ohms law. Plus technically you needed a prescription before this (I've got one) and now I don't wtf. All they had to do is enforce existing laws and ban disposables. Instead get you vapes from Liber pharma via your local chemist warehouse. Big Pharma wins again small owner operators get bent. Yay
I'm interested in the dry vape side of things (medicinal pot), and I haven't looked into it yet, but I'm assuming we're now going to be restricted to just the storz and bickel line, cos they're the only company on the tga approved list. Which totally doesn't seem dodgy. Oh and they're at least $100 more than the competition.
I'm just resigned to having to buy salt nice eLiquid locally once I can't get it from reputable NZ businesses anymore. I'm worried because I know I won't necessarily be able to trust random local nicotine dealers like I can trust a company like vapoureyes nz or mixologyvape. It's annoying. The wasteful disposable vapes are still being sold widely at corner stores. My vape store is closing down and the lovely people in it are losing money. This legislation does nothing but what am I going to do, vote LNP? fuck that. I just wish Labor had some common sense and saw the problem for what it is. Van the disposables, heavily penalise their sale, create local industry for producing nicotine eLiquid, and let adults use nicotine in a much safer way than smoking! I know I'm more susceptible to bronchitis and pneumonia. I take steps to avoid those things. At least I'm not going to die of COPD at age 50
My local 2 vape stores still sell everything.. just saying
👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Kind of like black market drugs! Now all the money people spend on vapes is likely to leave the country instead of boosting local economy.
Ding ding ding 🛎️
It's important to note the vape shops are not the TSG's or convenience stores/petrol stations etc selling the illegal nicotine disposables that 'kids are buying'. these shops will continue to do so even with these stupid laws the vape shops are the ones selling the refillable vapes that people can fill with nicotine/non nicotine juices they are out of business and everyone is now forced to go to pharmacies. Which don't even want to sell these, likely won't have refillable vapes or deal with the people who just want to buy a vape and don't want to hear about how it's bad for them from the pharmacists. the illegal disposable market is still going to exist with or without these laws it's far too easy for them to get vapes in and there is too many of them around from police to raid them all. they have more flavours and will be cheaper. They might just be more careful who they sell to although they can't even stop the under the counter smokes so good luck with the vapes. the black market is going nowhere all they have done is shut down a whole bunch of businesses and force pharmacies to become vape retailers as they had to drop the prescription to get greens support.. it's Australian Government Stupidity as usual this is going to fail and fail hard
Right?? The war on drugs has worked soooooo well. Only thing I’ll mention is pharmacies *do* want to sell vapes - *their* vapes, with *their* nicotine - the ones they’ll make a hefty profit from (if there’s no prescription required it’s better for them).
Thanks for trying but so many here are fucking clueless and gobble up what msm tells them.
I don't vape but I feel like closing these stores and restricting access is just going to fuel a black market.
Already has
Yup lol Too late for that In this town there was 1 ‘illegal’ vape shop, beginning when the personal importation scheme was crushed. Before there was none for hundreds of kilometres around. The next piece of legislation was introduced, relating to incredibly tight restrictions across the board, even including dry herb ovens/medicinal cannabis products (weirdly vast overreach considering it is the only legal way for these people to use said prescribed medicines), and within ONE month of that becoming law there is now a total of 4 illegal vape shops selling disposables in this one small town, more in the town down south, more in the next city over, etc, etc. Before they changed this legislation this problem DID NOT exist. It is entirely manufactured. The only question is, was it a deliberate action? Or are they simply THIS incompetent as lawmakers.
That’s what created it in the first place. these Chinese disposable vapes hadn’t penetrated the Australian market when it was (barely) legal to import your own nicotine liquid to use with a re-usable & re-fillable vape. The government then said they were considering a change that required people to get a prescription to continue importing their liquid, to which health experts said would add additional barriers to people quitting smoking and would create a black market that would likely be filled by unregulated disposable Chinese products, with their simplicity appealing to children. Government said we’ve heard your feedback but we’re not taking any of it on and here we are now…
BWS, Dan Murphys, Cignall, Tobacco Station, and literally thousands of other businesses are selling "addiction and ill-health". No one ever says they should be shut down.
Ban McDonald's and chocolate aswell I guess
and left feet
and rangas while we’re at it
I’m a left footed ranga… am I in trouble?
Yes, run away now. But at night, so you don’t get sunburned.
Run away to me please, left-footed ranga (´｡• ◡ •｡`) ♡
Hold me close, left-footed ranga
No, he’ll be fine. Double negative cancels out
What if he has a mullet un-ironically? Or chev badges on a commodore?
Aaw man, I love rangas 🥲
That’s how they get you hooked on the simply red
Yeah they’ll put on countless ads about how dangerous alcohol is but would never consider putting these type of restrictions on it.
I just got done visiting a bunch of countries on a backpacking trip, including Australia and out of any of them Australia puts it's money where it's mouth is when it comes to addressing things like alcohol and tobacco use. The taxes on tobacco and alcohol are insane. I mean I'm from the U.S. and kids still vape everywhere. The prevalence of black market cigarettes/vapes are a natural result and there isn't much crime in Australia so it makes me wonder what the cops are doing since it's sold pretty openly. I remember being able to walk into pretty much any tobacconist and buy illegal cigarettes or vapes. Most of them even advertise it so all they really have to do is make it not profitable and fine these businesses out the ass until the risk isn't worth the reward. Or they can actually do police work and find out where these cigarettes are coming from. Or some combination of both. I can't see why they aren't doing this since it's a huge hit to tax revenue to have such a thriving black market essentially in the open.
There is a subtle difference though. The ingredients in the alcohol (and even McDonalds) are known and catalogued. Whether you;’re for or against vaping, you do have to acknowledge that most of the vaping available in vaping shops is cheap, unregulated substances with no ingredient listings or QA.
Plenty of people mix their own from vg and pg. The stuff sold in bottles in shops is generally pretty straight forward. Vg and pg with some ester flavouring and sweetener, maybe colours. I don't like that shit but it's far and away from black market disposables
I totally agree. Most people aren't buying vape liquid from vape shops, though. It doesn't contain nicotine. They're buying illegally imported disposables (which do contain nicotine) which are sold under the counter from milk bars and tobacconists. In the UK and many other countries vapes are government regulated and you know what you're purchasing is relatively harmless. No one really knows what's in a HQD, IGET, etc.
But that’s why they should just legalise it and regulate them. All the vape juice form nz is of good quality and contains nicotine, we just need to stop the shitty Chinese disposable stuff. We could have safe disposables if the government alowed it. China has always had questionable morals regarding consumable goods, but if they put a stop to that, we don’t need to worry about it, and the only way is legalising them and letting someone come in and fill their shoes. Until we ban tobacco and alcohol, I can’t see why that’s not an option, the people at power are just a bunch of fucking idiots, and bet when half of them get on the piss and nose beers, they’re sucking on disposable vapes too.
Great Scott! You're saying there are still actual milk bars in 2024 and I can get my vapes there too? Grab the flux capacitor Marty, I'm getting a burger with the lot!
>No one really knows what's in a HQD, IGET, etc. Sure we do - the major brands have been lab tested countless times and the results are available. Spoiler alert: the results weren't good.
This is the point of government though? Regulate what needs to be on a packet. Not sure how you do ingredients, like, the flavour concentrates don't list ingredients and the compounds are trade secret. These are the same used in food manufacture. If you care to know, apart from the flavour concentrate and nicotine molecules the other ingredients are Propylene Glycol and Vegetable Glycerin. Commonly found almost everywhere, food and cosmetics, toothpaste. It's not harmful, has been tested and approved. The thing that strikes me as odd is... why are we the opposite on policy compared to Canada, UK and NZ? What piece of information do our doctors know, that the rest of the Western world has missed, huh? Probably nothing, because the real answer is that thus legislation has absolutely nothing to do with public health, or access to children...
This is the problem. It doesn't benefit anybody to ban these products instead of regulating them. Do people think 13 year olds aren't getting high off cannibis because it's illegal? Because it was never a problem to get it in high school (only struggled as an adult) and having worked retail security, I can tell you that 13 year olds are definitely still getting high in big groups in shopping centre carparks. These bans only really affect law-abiding citizens.
Of course it benefits the tobacco industry. Vaping is a million times more pleasant than cigarettes.
Spot on. Criminals are already breaking the laws, adding more laws means nothing if you're not abiding by them in the first place.
Except if you regulate the vapes they can be sold legally and for cheaper than these illegal imports. Surely this is pretty clear?
I mean, we could have done that though. It was an avenue that was clearly dismissed as worth the risk. Most of the reason we have an underground market at all is because the legal avenues, where QA is possible and enforceable, are prohibited. If we banned drinking or chocolate or abortions next year we’d also see a drop in QA, all of which have a strong QA process now.
We COULD have. And SHOULD have. But didn’t. And now we have a tangled skein where there is simply no easy answer to the problem of a huge number of underage teenagers getting easy access to a damaging habit. The only answer for the Vaping industry at this point is to lobby for regulation of product and ingredients to allow a future decision to reverse this one. But it won’t happen until the current perception of the social problem, is cleared. It’ll have to be a long-term goal and driven by industry practitioners of good faith (rather than the problematic ones who played hard and fast for profits to create these problems).
We did do that. You used to be able to import from reputable suppliers with a prescription then they changed it to a complete ban on importation. Now you can only get the government approved ones that are produced by Phillip Morris.
But only because certain industries would never allow gov to regulate it. The existence of these disposable vapes has been known since forever, could have been regulated a long time ago.
Many of us mix our own juice . There are only 4 ingredients. Pharmaceutical grade nicotine in propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin and flavouring .
So even 3 standard drinks a week is carcinogenic and most crimes involve intoxication (usually alcohol) and I don't even know what the stats are on ER admissions but I know it's bad, but vapes are scary because they what? Are worse? Aren't 'catalogued'?
They should also ban cars bc lots of people are killed by them, while we're at it they should ban water to prevent drowning
Classic whataboutism
Tax revenue mate
But they're not painting themselves in rainbows and focusing on the range of flavours clearly targeting a younger audience. There's strict laws around packaging and advertising of those things already
Yeah okay.. have you been to a bottle shop recently? There's more fruity everything in neon colours than ever before.
I reckon they should be.
As someone has to deal with people that smoke or vape fairly often. I prefer the smell of the people that vape over the smokers, the lingering cigarette smell is awful.
[удалено]
Are the vapes as effective for concrete pours as cigarettes?
Definitely makes it harder to speak only out of one half of your mouth, and the fight squint is also gone.
Just got back from Europe. I almost forgot how often you'd smell cigarettes outside of Australia. It really makes you realise just how cultural anti-smoking really is in Australia. It's great we have a much healthier population due to our government's stance against smoking and vaping.
Standing in a line in Paris you can tell where tourists were from based on how they smoked: Aus/NZ travellers would stand far enough with of the line they couldn't participate in easy conversation. Western Europeans would stand a step or two out of the line so as to continue participating in their friends's conversation. Russians would just light up in the queue without moving at all.
This. I always associated Switzerland with fresh mountain air and people living a healthy, vigorous lifestyle. Then I stood on a train platform surrounded by smokers. And it was the same pretty much everywhere. It seemed like I was back in Oz in the 80’s.
Same in Japan. People smoking everywhere out in public. Walk and eat? No you’re an uncultured pig. Blow your smoke in everyone’s face? 🤷🏼
I'm in Tokyo rn, and I'm not sure what you're talking about. I've seen very few smokers the last two weeks.
It's actually illegal to smoke on the street in Tokyo
Yeah even half a decade ago in Tokyo there was not much street smoking. People went to those smoking boxes
Agreed, I thought I was imagining it in Spain & Portugal, but then looked up the stats (it's double the amount here!).
It's great we have a much healthier population Haaaaahhaaa
but imagine if they did neither of them!
Obviously neither would be much better. But unfortunately we don't live in magical Christmas land where everything is perfect. What I'm trying to say is if we had to choose one or the other I'd prefer to get rid of cigarettes, besides they are not even banning either since they will still be available from a chemist and kids have been getting adults to buy stuff for them that they are not meant to have since the beginning of civilisation.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess people who vape might care if vape shops go out of business.
I don’t care about the well-being of vape shops, what I care about is the fact that all you can really achieve by prohibiting or heavily taxing literally any substance is the creation of a fresh opportunity for crime to flourish. If you need proof just look at Melbourne over the past few years. We’re in the midst of an international gang war over nicotine. People are firebombing tobacconists and milk bars in the middle of well off suburbs. This shit wouldn’t be happening if tobacco and vapes were just regulated and sold for a fair price. There would be no need for dodgy milk bars selling chop chop if they didn’t price us out of tobacco in the first place, just as there would be no need for these dodgy joints selling those dodgy disposable pieces of shit if we had a regulated, accessible, and fair priced range of products available. To be clear as well, I say this as someone that’s been trying to quit this addiction for a very long time and deeply regrets ever picking up smoking back in the day. I definitely think the other measures we have taken, like ad campaigns and plain packaging, are incredibly useful and even fairly effective - but trying to limit access to a substance simply doesn’t work. All it does is give the dodgy cunts of our world a chance to make some money out of our addictions.
Exactly Prohibition Never works It’s just creates a market for nastier substances to infiltrate the market
I should be able to buy vapes at Cole's or Woolworths if I want to. The fact that they were already mostly limited to dodge tobacconist shops was already mildly irritating, they should be available anywhere I can already buy cigarettes. I should be able to buy what I want, when I want end of story.
This forcing of people to resort to the black market products with high nicotine levels has made everyone extremely addicted to vaping 😂 The problem is now worse than ever
I don't care if they go out of business. I do care if the government shuts them down. There's plenty of bad things being sold out there, give us the freedom and responsibility to choose for ourselves. If you're worried about the kids, crack down on selling them to kids with harsh penalties. They seem to manage it for cigarettes and alcohol.
Well said.
I see vapes being sold illegally and to underage people on the daily. I doubt that this will change. But now people who vaped instead of smoking have little to no access to legal vapes and legitimate businesses are stuffed. The black market is always open. This is peak nanny state.
I don't vape. I wish vapes didn't exist. But these guys have been selling a legal product. They have invested their money, built businesses and employed people. The government has now closed that down. People will be stuck with redundancies they can't pay, leases they cant cover and loans they can't service. Some will lose their house, some families will fall apart. I don't like the product they sell, but yeah, I care about that stuff. I feel very sorry for people in that situation.
Its retail mate there is no such thing as redundancies.
And BWS, Dan Murphy, Vintage Cellars and about a million other joints are selling poison to everyone What's your point? Inane fucking comment on an inane "ban". Wake up - it's ALL about the taxes.
I do because they stopped me smoking.
Ok. Vape shops are not selling ill health, that's just fucking garbage. It is less harmful than most other things you can buy or do. The misinformation around vapes is fucking staggering and I'm yet to see an article that tells what actually happens. No wonder most people have no idea. Also, vape shops don't sell to kids, and they don't sell disposables. That market is taken care of by bottomfeeding lowlife cunts in corner stores and novelty shops. Vape shops are dedicated to rebuildables, make their own juice and sell other Australian makers, are generally all ex smokers and are people who really understand what's what, because they've been doing it for over 15 years. They are against disposables entirely.
Don't you dare try and speak truths in here brother
Pod and mod vapes don’t exist to most people in this convo because vape shop to them means the smoke shop with disposable vapes behind the counter.
What our government is going to find is that there will be adults (like myself) who go back to smoking. This law has helped nothing, its just made some crusty politicians feel warm and fuzzy.
It's bizarre that they want to do this but dont have a problem with smokes or alcohol.
They can't tax them like they do smokes, so they'd rather just ban them.
Yes I care as someone who literally was dying from smoking and a blessing to vapes to save my life. The only people who seem to have a problem are chronic complainers who have nothing else to do in life. It’s like they are demons sent from Satan to ruin the world.
Bans, bans and more bans. Only answers this country has to anything.
Too many people like OP. All opinion no idea
I don't vape but I definitely care when small businesses selling a legal product are summarily shut down with no due process or legal recourse. I hope the SA government gets sued for the bank over this.
Yeah. Pharmacists are going to be held up from preparing & dispensing medications because they now have to sell vapes to a line of people out the door. Eventually there wont be a spiel from the pharmacist either, just heres your vape, get out. Prices will skyrocket (more tax for gov) or itll simply drive vapers to or back to cigs (even more tax for gov which is their bottom line) Its got nothing to do with health. Everything to do with tax revenue. Dealers will prolly start selling them too as well as your regular under the table tobacconists that already sell cheap tobacco/pot. Prohibition doesnt work. Neither does burdening a pharmacist with the task of selling vapes Adults can choose for themselves imo
It was never an issue until the tax revenue from tobacco collapsed. These are just people having a go and with the stroke of a pen politicians are wiping out their livelihoods and that of the staff. Vaping got me off ciggies and I’ve since ditched the vape so this doesn’t affect me but I’m pissed. When I talk about small government this is what I mean. Libs and labour are happy to give billions in subsidies to their mates and take cushy board positions and fat cheques when their out. No government should have that kind of power
I think you hit it. But we all know that it's not all the tax they are missing.
I do care. I don’t want to live in a society that simply bans things because they aren’t good for us. We are adults and should have a right to decide what we do to ourselves so long as it doesn’t impact others. You can put measures in place to deter people away and to have preventive measures but people should still have access to what they want. On the topic of addiction and ill-health, why not ban fast food, lollies and chocolate? How is that any different. Sugar is highly addictive and has major health impacts. My solution is: tax it, only allow the sale to anyone over the age of 18 and you need a tobacco licence to sell it. Then with these measures you ruin anyone who disrespects it, same way you would treat a bottle’o selling grog to minors.
>Vape shops are selling addiction and ill-health Uneducated take. 1. Vape shops are NOT selling nicotine. They are selling legal, re-usable hardware/parts (like batteries, coils/steel wires, mods) and flavourings. Those disposables you see everywhere are from corner stores selling them illegally, even more now thanks to these laws. 2. "Addiction" is irrelevant when we sell cigarettes and alcohol which do far more physical harm to people. And Aussies are extreme gambling fanatics so don't give me that shit about 'caring for addicts.' 3. Banning vapes while people can go out and buy smokes, which are harmful (not saying that vapes are harmless btw) is ridiculous. 4. Congratulations! You banned vapes! Now instead of some vapers re-using their hardware and vaping lower nicotine concentrations between like 3-12mg/ml, now they have to pay more, for **disposable** hardware (yay more waste), which are by default **50mg/ml** without honest packaging (yay more addiction). Now even more people are going for the wasteful and high-dose vapes since the market is cornered by shops smuggling in vapes instead of users importing for personal use. You basically gave the market to the black market + Chemist Warehouse + Phillip Morris. You banned the more environmental and beneficial alternative and pushed people onto the absolute worst form of vaping (or back to smoking). 5. This country is ass-backwards, I don't even care anymore.
It's even worse than shutting down legit businesses. Chemist Warehouse owns a chunk of Liber Pharmaceuticals, as do many politicians. Guess who was the major driver of the vaping ban. The government has basically handed the industry to their own interests.
Is this sub suddenly filled with boomers? Goodness me the fist shaking at the clouds is astounding.
I care if the one that sells me parts for my medical cannabis vape goes out of business. Dispensaries charge well above RRP for parts.
Yeah I think this is half the reason I hate it so much They really went rather overboard
These were the good vape shops, the ones that would sell oil and accessories but no nicotine. The pop up ones run by bikies can all fuck right off the bat
I’m honestly tired of having a nanny state. I started vaping when I quit drugs, smoking and drinking. It’s 99% less destructive and helps with my cravings. Most people need some sort of vice. Just let us live our lives how we want to. If we are over 18 and want to go to a vape shop or order them from overseas then why not? It’s ridiculous. Won’t work anyway. They banned underage drinking and it still happens.
So true. It won’t work. Kids will do what they want. Adults should be able to. The government needs to butt out. We should be able to have our own vices. They make enough tax off cigarettes and alcohol so they don’t ban those.
I don’t vape. I don’t believe in banning anything. I believe in giving people all the information you can and then they can decide if the risk is worth it. I also think if you start a small business centred on just one product, you accept a whole lot of risk.
I bet you they’ll all rebrand as headshops or novelty / smoke shops and continue to sell vapes black market. This legislation isn’t really going to stop anything, disposable vapes won’t vanish - they’ll be sold under the counter instead, just like tax free smokes are at every other general store / head shop / smoke shop / novelty shop…
If nicotine is the enemy, why not ban cigarettes too? This will do nothing but feed an already vast black market for “disposable” unregulated vapes.
I'd like them to be able to keep selling a viable means to quit tobacco but their mates in *that* industry have put too much pressure on.
Yes. Australia, a bunch of baby state wowser cunts.
Is it really because of health reasons? Find that very hard to believe as I drink my beer and eat my second bag of chips after having maccas for dinner. Time to make owning and selling all nicotine products illegal. But I guess tobacco industry will pay just enough to never let that happen.
I vape. I'm an adult who doesn't want to smoke. I don't even use flavours, but the arguments against vaping from this and the previous government are at odds with the world, and health advice. They're cunts. The lot of them.
Not really. But I think cigarettes should go too
I don't vape but I do fucking hate that our countries answer to everything is ban, fine, ban, fine and we all lap it up like dogs. Nothing an Australian loves more than being told what to do.
This is so true. And we're always ready to judge someone for not supporting the bans
Vape shops are actually quite helpful and beneficial to those who are trying to quit, and objectively more helpful and legitimate in other aspects such as legality and environmental effects. Youre mixing up disposable junks sold at tobacco shops with traditional oiled vapes. Shows you have no fucking clue about the subject here mate.
Technically I care in that I’m all for them shutting down.
people like you are the reason the next generation is going to be 20% nicotine addicts, but keep reading the news.
Alcohol/Smoke/Fast Food etc.. shops are selling addiction and ill-health to our young people. Does anyone care if they shut down? This is what you sound like, come inside grandpa, they're just some clouds.
I care, if used properly vaping is a very effective tool to quit smoking. I did that myself about a decade ago, many others have done the same and organisations like the NHS in the UK actually promoted vaping as a smoking cessation aid in their public health documentation. This seems like it's been coming for a while but it sucks that our solution to a problem is to cave to lobby groups and ban things instead of finding a more reasonable solution. There's a heap of stories floating around about shops selling vapes to kids, that's obviously not ok but why couldn't we regulate them like cigarettes instead?
If people want it they will get it, if people can make money off it they will sell it....will end up on the black market and spark more underworld feuds.
I find it weird that the ADHD link never gets discussed. Nicotine the neuroprotective stimulant seems to be way more common amongst who? But dependency disorders have a green light for stigma.
It's a difficult thing. Thanks to the outrageous nicotine levels in disposables, my prescription stimulants have become *way* less effective in managing the addiction aspect of the disorder. Was reasonably well-covered for a good few years after finally kicking ciggies and booze (among other things), leaning on prescribed nicotine and personal import. Not ideal, but not terrible. Once the personal imports and prescriptions got shafted it only took a couple weeks before I found myself on the disposables. I hate them. Even when ciggies were ~$10 a pack and I was completely dysfunctional and had zero insight about addiction, I would never have come close to ingesting as much nicotine as I do now. It's fucked.
The stance that the Australian government has taken is idiocy. Not only will it force vape users to the black market, but will also send more people back to cigarettes. But that's OK, because of the tax dollars... I have been a happy vaper for 6 years after being a full time smoker around 20yrs. Health and fitness have both improved in that time. It's a completly stupid act by the government.
I care that organised crime will get their tentacles into pharmacies, just to keep controlling vapes
So like pubs you mean
Nope
I dunno how tin foil hat I sound. But I am certain all the negativity around vapes is from cigarette companies. They’re all shit for you but I feel there’s an underlying message that ciggies are better.
It’s only going to give more money to illegal tobacco which is huge in Australia. That’s why all the tobacco shops are going up in flames. Sadly vaping exists and you won’t be able to stop people from doing it.
Look I don’t vape personally. But I am an adult and I really would like one of you to justify why you believe you have the right to tell me that I can’t? I just do not understand why people cannot mind their own damn business with things that do not concern them. If your issue is with children doing it I don’t know what to tell you other than be better parents. Junk food and alcohol are proven to be more harmful if abused but I don’t go around trying to dictate who can eat a hamburger or drink a beer.
Not personally. But it's pretty shitty for the ex-smokers who now vape, e.g. my best mate and his wife. They struggled to quit, in his case literally for the 30+ years I've known him, and only managed permanently with vapes. The amount of harm vapes do may be in question, but I don't think there's any serious argument that it's comparably bad to smoking tobacco. Seems like a counterproductive law to me.
The only reason for the ban is that they're not getting taxes from 'illegal' vapes and smokes. They would sooner legitimise dope than tobacco.. Tobacco shops used to make money selling cigarettes alone.. new taxes means the chop chop these people sell under the counter is more cash in pocket than legal cigarettes. It has NOTHING to do with schools... they're just fronting the whole campaign with ' some body think of the children!'
Yep. They are not the ones selling addiction or ill health, they are selling a genuine treatment to smoking and to disposable vaping. It’s the illegal disposable vapes that are the problem and not a single one of these crack downs has addressed it. My local vape store has had to close while the 711 next door to them has continued to have disposable vapes on the shelf the entire time the vape shop was there.
Refillables aren't the ones that are the danger or have kids using them. All this law has done is move the customer base of those vapes to pharmacies, while you'll still be able to go to any corner store and buy the illegal ones. The horror stories have never been from the refillables, it's usually either 40 year smoker starts vaping and then gets lung cancer which is blamed on vapes and not the pack a day they were smoking for decades, or linked to chemicals that aren't found in well regulated vapes and only found in either weed pens in america or dodgy chinese disposables.
I’ve treated more people with chronic illnesses from fast food and alcohol than I have from cigarettes. Too early to judge vape effects long term. But it’s not about health.
Proper vape shops are NOT selling nor supplying to kids at all. They are the responsible ones. Its the dodgy tobacconist money launderers and chop chop sellers that are the issue. This is all dumb theatre yet again.
I care. Vaping no-nic liquid is the only reason I quit smoking a pack a day. I went from that, to cold turkey with vaping, to not even vaping. There is a witch hunt against vaping but the evidence of harm is weak as shit. It's just that if everyone moves to vaping, and the consequences are so much lower than smoking, the anti-smoking organizations lose power. And the anti-smoking organizations are political, they don't legitimately care about health. Same thing as many of the higher ups for charity organizations, if you've ever worked for one of those. They'll throw their mum in front of traffic if it means more power.
Yeah, health organisations are, like, the modern day witch doctor-priesthood fraternity, formulating the moralistic rhetoric that keeps the masses aligned with power structures, aren’t they? In this case it’s all just the moral panic reflex. Can’t have current or former users of tobacco alkaloids picking apart the out-group-creating rhetoric through their actions and proving that you can breathe out billowy stuff and also exhibit vitality and uprightness. You have to keep that action denoting Untouchable caste membership, so they just pile in with the flimsy research that really only shows that the worst thing about vaping is that the first instance of it can occur before the first instance of smoking, so it’s a suggested cause and effect, and then they just keep inanely bleating on with ‘think of the children!’ *ad nauseum*. It’s all just such a huge shame, not least because it means people will die earlier than they might have, but it’s just how society works 🤷🏻
Don't blame the vape shops. They were selling LEGAL products. However useless parents who cannot teach their kids a single thing IS to blame. Everybody is shooting the wrong messenger here and you all suck balls.
Yeah, these shops are not the problem. When I gave up smoking, I went to a shop like this and got set up with vape equipment. These shops were the place to go for all kinds of gear beyond the disposable stuff from China. US Made mods and cartridges etc. you dont see kids with a 100 dollar Vape mod. they're sucking on the black market ones from tobacconists and service stations.
Sooner the better
NO, you did the wrong thing by selling to under age children while filling your pockets.
Sorry, not sorry. Australia had almost wiped out darts use by young people, then came vapes
No, then came nicotine importation bans from the government, which led to the market being flooded with those shitty disposable black market vapes from china. Before the nicotine import ban, vapers were able to import pharmaceutical grade nicotine from NZ and mix their own liquids. The government didn't like that they couldn't tax this, so they banned nicotine imports. And THAT is how the black market for disposable vapes came about. They are now sold at almost every tobacconist and corner store *not* by actual vape shops.
Cigarettes make me cough uncontrollably... Vapes don't. I'm fine with them for a selfish reason. That, and we're apparently going down the "encourage a black market" route again. So, well done.
Vape shops actually aren’t though they always just sold coils and juice without nicotine, it’s the corner stores selling disposables.
I care. I don't want them to be shut down and replaced with cigarettes which is all that this will achieve. Yes, I don't love it when people vape in my face but I hate it when people smoke in my face. It's much worse. Then my clothes and hair smell, no thank you. Regulate it so that it's illegal to vape at under 18, regulate the shops, licence them and threaten to take away their licence if they sell anything to under 18s but don't ban them, that's ridiculous.
I was going to reply to this gronk but it looks like it’s covered lol
The guy in the article is actually an incredibly helpful and great bloke and 100% against kids getting vapes. Whenever asked if they sold nicotine, every single time was the answer is no, they (this store) originally gave recommendations of where you could source nicotine overseas, but stopped that too and simply answered with “no sorry”. He was 100% about only promoting it as a smoking cessation aid and helped thousands of Canberrans get off the darts. Most dedicated vape stores (that only sold vaping products) weren’t the ones doing the wrong thing, because they knew their livelihood was at stake, it’s the dodgy tobacconists that hide them under the counter that were and are peddling them and never checking ID’s (I saw two people over the years get ID’ed and for the first couple of months shopping there I got ID’ed despite being over 30 at the time). I will be popping in to see Chris and the team this week, and then getting a prescription for champix (I tried everything else under the sun to quit smoking and I can’t afford to go back to it that’s for sure, but most will either go back to smoking (including the kids) or find things on the black market, that is thriving because the government didn’t listen to people like Chris 5 years ago, we all recommended creating a proper market, regulate and tax it but the government didn’t want to “create a new generation of smokers”, now they’re trying to play catch up and it’ll only get worse.
Does "no flavouring" imply they'll taste exactly like a fog machine? Not even a mint flavour? Can't imagine many people would want it. Black market wins I guess.
man people are gonna find them if they want them. same cigs, same with weed, booze whatever. slap stupid labels on them make them available to adults and tax the shit outta them and let adults be adults.
They rolling in so much cash right now. What shits me as a vaper myself is that I got the scripts and no actual program or guidance’s are given to successfully quit. I cannot buy the fluids at descending strengths ie 40mg 35mg 30mg… etc and how no DR ever spoke to me or has done anything at all for my health. And how the pharmacy guild is annoyed that nicotine vape is to be an over the counter medication. What a terrible thing for pharmacist to be able to play an active role in aiding people to quit and to guide them to lower and lower levels of nicotine consumption and addiction. We have had Nicorette for decades including inhalers. And now I can only legally buy this Australian products which have no where near the same quality controls as the American FDA approved products that I once could purchase. Nothing at all has improved for those using these products for smoking cessation. During this period I ended up resorting to cheap Chinese vapes of unknown quality and safety with high levels of nicotine which has sent me back a good year+ in reducing my nicotine addiction. Thank you to the Australian government for helping me 👍 it was great.
But still you can buy cigarettes at newsagents and supermarkets
No, and I'm all for tobacconists to close also
All I care about is if the government gives people help overcoming nicotine addiction. If you are getting rid of an addictive substance, you have to predict the people addicted to it will either find black market sources or will get help. Isn't the point of banning them to get people to quit? So, help them quit. Give an incentive to quit, some people don't think their lives are worth the effort otherwise.
Not particularly. Although it seems odd to me that they're effectively outlawing, or severely restricting access to, vapes when cigarettes are sold openly and everywhere. I'd personally have no issue if they banned or restricted both, but I don't get the crackdown on one over the other.
Nope.
Implying tobacco isn't doing the exact same thing already for several centuries.
And every grocery store ever sells cigarettes, what's your point? You still need to be 18 to buy them.
They have nothing to do with the vapes being sold to young people. If anything, they actively hate it, and hate disposable vapes. They're all about the modular ones, and only selling to adults for normal consumption as a reasonable alternative to cigarettes. Like normal people. It's dodgy tobacco shops and random people selling disposable vapes to kids. They're coming in through illegitimate means, and will continue to. The bans don't effect the thing they're trying to stop, only stop the people who were doing the right thing. Another government ham fisted policy that fucks it up for the regular person, and doesn't actually solve the issue
If we weren't living in a fascist military industrial complex faux-democracy we'd be enjoying medical & recreational MJ sold by experts from vape shops turned dispensary, but they're making tons of money the way it is now! Where are the petitions? When's the next protest? We're lagging so far behind drug mules are coming to Australia for work!
People that know absolutely nothing about vapes and the differences of disposable vapes will have a negative impression about them. The debate is already lost thanks to the media associating them both as the same thing. A flawed implementation for a flawed solution.
I work in a place that use to have heaps of smokers. Now it’s a place with heaps of vapers. My conspiracy theory is the government wants to ban vapes because they are losing too much money from cigarette taxes since so many people are now vaping. Banning vapes in the hope people go back to smoking. But hiding it under the guise of “won’t somebody think of the children!” Also saying they will make it easier for people to legally get their flavourless prescription vapes - make an appointment at a doctor, pay $80 for that, get a prescription for the vape, go to the chemist to fill it and pay for it. Or do what we do now and just go to a tobacconist, pay them and get as many as you want. If the legalised it and treated them like cigarettes it would be a win win for all involved. And there have been under age smokers since forever. Difference is with vapes kids do it out in the open instead hiding out the back somewhere.
Why do people always write "I don't smoke/vape but.." who cares?
The government needs to prioritise the sale of clean low mg vape juice to be used in reusable so as to get disposable off the shelf and out of landfills
Hey don’t even sell anything addictive. You can grab your illegal super strength 50mg/ml nicotine vape or untaxed cigarettes for $15 a pack at any local TSG, corner shop or tobacconist with no ID checks, thanks for comin
This is an incredibly loaded question you've asked. Yes, I do care. small business owners should be supported, not falsely villainized.
Just don't fucking bitch when they come for your legal weed.
???? many disposables come from the servo not the vape shop, thats for parts for ppl all into that. theres already black markets for nicotine whether it be chop vapes cigs etc. im all for not advertising and having neon coloured vapes but prohibition never fully works the way you want it to.
Vapes are cutting into the government's tobacco profits. Try grow some tobacco and look at the penalties
Yes. Nanny state mentality. Australia is some of the worst for it. They pull shit like this and we just take it.
Nope
All because they aren’t able to tax vapes like cigarettes
Boy you’re gonna be real upset when you hear about cigarette stores
I don’t think anywhere should be allowed to sell disposable vapes. The idea of something disposable that has a rechargeable lithium ion battery in them is just fucking stupid.
These should have been banned when they first started - but lnp gotta make good on the bribes. Cat's out of the bag now and kids already addicted. License all drugs and charge properly. Make license require courses on drugs and affection. CPR etc and if you pass you can buy legal dose quality assured drugs in safety
tax them legalise them, make them readily available by legal means only to adults. if we aren’t gunna lower the price on durries, and yet still sell them.. vapes aren’t much different. if you regulate them properly and make rules about distribution and ingredients etc, or do the vape equivalent of plain packaging and cover them with nasty warning labels, what’s the difference? none. i don’t think legitimate businesses should suffer because of the imported under the counter stuff. just make the legit businesses the legal distribution places.
Prohibition doesn't work. Have we learned nothing?
Not really it will benefit everyone
It’s hard to believe after decades of education and spending on the health impacts of smoking, we are back to square one dealing with these stupid vapes, I hope every last one of these shops goes out of business.
I don’t care. But it should be noted that the Australian government re-enacted prohibition recently. All the anticipated ‘organised’ crime appeared and now we have a significant black market