CAPHRA urges Australia to change stance on e-cigarettes

The Asia Pacific Advocates for Tobacco Harm Reduction Alliance (CAPHRA) has urged the new Australian government to reconsider its stance against electronic cigarettes.

As of October 1st, electronic cigarette users in Australia can only purchase e-cigarette products from a pharmacy with a prescription. This is in contrast to neighboring New Zealand and most other countries, where retailers can sell nicotine products over the counter. However, anyone who violates Australian regulations will face hefty fines and, in severe cases, imprisonment.

At the same time, the latest report from the National Household Survey on Drug Strategy states that although over 2.5 million Australians still smoke, the number of people using e-cigarettes was 240,000 in 2016 and 520,000 in 2019. If this trend continues, there could be up to 600,000 Australians using e-cigarettes currently.

CAPHRA has emphasized that the local, hard-line approach to electronic cigarettes is increasingly out of sync with other Asia-Pacific countries. The new government and the next Health Minister must support tobacco harm reduction (THR) methods, including providing safer alternatives to smokers. CAPHRA Coordinator, Nancy Loucas, said, "We hope the Liberal Party will end the public war on nicotine products that has been going on for nearly a decade.

Former Health Minister Greg Hunt and his cabinet colleagues oversaw a failed "quit or die" approach to tobacco control. As a result, Australia's overall smoking rates have hardly budged, while other countries have achieved significant success. "To save thousands of Australian lives every year, the new government must urgently adopt a completely different strategy," Loucas said.

According to a recent press release by CAPHRA, Australian tobacco harm reduction (THR) expert Dr. Colin Mendelsohn has recently described Australia's past decade of anti-smoking strategies as "embarrassing failures," and the numbers confirm it. In 2018, a target was set for adults to reduce smoking by 10% per day, but only 13.8% was achieved, with smoking rates now at a stable level.

Dr. Alexander David Wodak, a renowned advocate for reducing drug harm in Australia, has long argued that the same approach needed for smoking. In a recent interview with ABC, Dr. Wodak explained how Australia has taken the wrong approach to safer nicotine alternatives, causing it to fall behind other countries in smoking rates instead of making progress.

He suggested that "the majority of smokers have low income", therefore, safer nicotine substitutes should not be priced too high in order to encourage smokers to switch to alternatives such as e-cigarettes.