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This is my response to the Government’s Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024, which aims to ban vaping in Australia.

As a result of the measures already taken by the Government to ban vaping, organised crime is now moving into illegal tobacco and vape markets with horrific consequences.

This is not about selling our children a bergamot herbal vape; rather, it’s so they can sell vapes laced with hard drugs to get our youth addicted and reclaim the market share that vaping has cost them.

I’ve always maintained that the safety of vapes depends on the quality of the device and the liquid it contains. A more effective regulatory approach would have been to support a future Made in Australia by allowing Australian companies to produce legal, quality-tested and regulated vapes. This should include measures to keep these products out of the hands of children and to impose the same usage restrictions as those applied to smoking.

Instead, the Government is doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry, which views vaping—and medical cannabis which vapes often hold—as a threat to their profits and power.

This Bill will backfire badly.

Transcript

I’m speaking to the Therapeutic Goods and Other Legislation Amendment (Vaping Reforms) Bill 2024. I note the government circulated 11 pages of amendments just an hour or so ago. The large number of amendments indicate the process of consultation was flawed, and concerns from senators have caused fundamental changes to this bill. Is it in, out, in or out? I hope the government learns a lesson from this and in future honours the spirit of genuine consultation. I hope it honours the committee process to produce a bill that doesn’t need last-minute, wholesale changes. 

I note the bill amends the poison schedule, to downgrade vapes from schedule 4 to schedule 3, and adds conditions to their use in that listing. When I tried to do exactly the same thing—to downgrade medical cannabis and add conditions to that listing—I was told, ‘That’s a very strange thing to do,’ and my bill was not supported, in part because of that. Now they’re doing the very same thing that they said was very strange. 

In Queensland, vaping products with or without nicotine are illegal unless on prescription. Vapes are subject to the same laws as cigarettes or tobacco products as to where they can be used and the circumstances in which they can be purchased. Queensland law right now prevents children under 16 accessing or using a vape. Personal health and child welfare are rightly the responsibility of the states. Yet, once again, this government seeks to increase its powers in areas where it has no Constitutional authority. 

This bill amends the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 and the Customs Act 1901 to limit the importation, domestic manufacture, supply, commercial and private possession, and advertising of non-therapeutic and disposable vaping goods. Over-the-counter sales at chemists will be permitted, and access to children under 18 will be via the Special Access Scheme. There are substantial differences in how possession for personal use and commercial use are handled, yet the bill does not specify this threshold, which will come later in regulation that we haven’t seen. Too much of this bill will come later in regulations. The government is asking us to trust their judgement on a bill that is a litany of bad judgement. The bill defines a vape as ‘anything that’s held out to be a vape’. It explicitly excludes the need for a lab analysis to prove that the item is in fact a vape. Much of the bill goes into the licensing arrangements for importation, manufacture, distribution and possession. 

The bill was developed after supposed consultation, yet the government’s reaching out to selected friends in the health industry who share the same commercial interests as informed this bill is not consultation. It’s an echo chamber of self-interest, as the substantial last-minute amendments now prove. Everyday Australians were not permitted to make a confidential submission. Their submissions had to be public and accompanied by a declaration of interests—something very few witnesses felt comfortable doing. In particular, this prevented personal stories of how vaping helped defeat a smoking or other addiction and weighted submissions towards self-interested corporate health providers and charities. 

The evidentiary burden of proof in the offences under the bill are reversed. This removes the common law protection that fault must be found before an offence has been committed. While the government may find contesting charges in a court of law tiresome, 800 years of common law rights should not be so lightly dismissed and disposed of. There’s no justification for reversing the burden of proof. For this reason I have submitted an amendment to this bill in the committee stage to restore the presumption of innocence enjoyed by all Australians since our country’s settlement. At section 41P(1), ‘vaping substance’ is defined as ‘any liquid or other substance for use in, or with, a vaping device’. There’s no nuance in the penalties. Possessing a vaping substance carries the same penalty as possessing a vape itself. 

People who make cakes, fudges, chocolates, lollies and similar products use the same flavourings as can be used in vape manufacture. Those flavourings shouldn’t be used in vapes. They may be considered safe for stomachs, but not for lungs. Yet they are used in illegal vaping solutions, and I’ve received complaints from bakers that, for this reason, Border Force are seizing shipments of flavourings. Under this legislation, a baker or confectionary manufacturer importing a food flavouring that can be used in vaping must first have it approved for use, despite its being in use for generations, and then obtain a licence to import or possess commercial quantities—of cake flavouring! The importer and probably their largest customers will need to keep records of their use of these potentially illicit food flavourings to ensure that organised crime is not supplied out the back door, with penalties of up to $3.8 million and/or imprisonment for seven years. This is serious business. 

I appreciate that this is not the intention of the bill. Yet it is the wording of the bill. I point out that the bill and the explanatory memorandum provide no guidance as to which goods should be permitted and which should not. The minister has complete power to make this decision. So far job losses from vaping prohibition are around 2,000, with 500 vaping stores already closed. The trade in vaping has now moved into the hands of organised crime, with a gang war breaking out in our capital cities to control the illicit vaping trade, as well as the illicit tobacco trade now that tobacco has been taxed to the point of idiocy. The bombings, ramraids, murders and violence so far in this underworld war are on the government, for breaking the government’s social licence to act fairly, honestly and reasonably towards the public. The best interest of the public has been replaced with the best interest of crony capitalist stakeholders. 

The last-minute deal with the Greens to add over-the-counter sales at chemists may serve to head off that outcome. Time will tell. The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme 2022 post-market review of medicines for smoking cessation found that 550,000 prescriptions were written for smoking cessation products in 2022. And get a load of this: these included varenicline, from Pfizer, costing $194 a prescription, which in the various formulations was responsible for 2,042 Australian adverse event notifications, including 55 deaths. And there is bupropion, from Aspen pharmaceuticals, which has had 2,100 adverse event notifications, including 22 deaths. The incompetence—does it stop? The post-market review says, ‘The mechanism by which bupropion enhances the ability of patients to abstain from smoking is unknown.’ So, we don’t know why it works. It’s killed 22 people—yet, prescribe it anyway! Just don’t let people buy their own vapes. We can’t have smokers quitting on their own, can we? 

The explanatory memorandum for this bill cites data from the Australian secondary school students’ use of tobacco and e-cigarettes report, which states that the proliferation of vaping across the community represents a severe public health concern. Vaping has been associated with severe public health effects relating to adolescent brain development, worsened pregnancy outcomes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and cancer. Vaping also carries other health effects such as burns, seizures and poisoning. 

Let me deal with the last one first. Yes, illicit vapes do cause internal burns and cause external burns if they explode. They cause poisoning and seizures as a reaction to that poisoning. A poorly made vape will burn and put toxic chemicals into the user’s lungs. Unregulated vaping in the USA caused 28 deaths coming from the use of ethylene glycol, a popular substance in commercial baking. It’s considered safe to be eaten but not safe to be vaporised into the lungs. This illegal use of a legal substance is what caused the popcorn lung syndrome. Illegal vapes can contain thousands of substances we call ‘compounds’ when in legal products and ‘chemicals’ when not in legal products. There are, however, 7,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke—more than are found in a quality vape, not an illicit vape. Telling one side of the story never communicates an honest picture of the truth. It condemns you. It used to be possible to import quality vapes from New Zealand. The Labor government stopped this. Now we have unsafe, illegal vapes. Who knows what’s in them? The TGA’s tweets against vaping were community noted with a comprehensive bibliography of good science that counters their scare stories. I will reproduce those community notes with citations on my website for anyone who wants to educate themselves on legal, safe vaping. 

Is vaping a gateway behaviour to smoking or drug-taking? Actually, no; it’s not. On page 8 of the secondary school report, smoking rates amongst schoolchildren have fallen over the last five years. ‘Ever smoked’ is down from 17.5 per cent to 13.5 per cent. ‘Smoked in the past week’ is down from 4.9 per cent to 2.1 per cent—more than halved. This was in a period when vapes were readily available. Vaping is clearly working to reduce smoking rates. This is what has the quit smoking industry worried. 

The UK government’s periodic data review titled Nicotine vaping in England: 2022 evidence update found that 98.3 per cent of children who had not tried smoking did not try vaping. This means any increase in vaping rates is either in replacement of smoking or in conjunction with smoking. This data is in contrast to the secondary schools report which found that past month vaping alone was at 15 per cent. Let’s have a look at that. The study covered vaping as a generic class, including e-cigarettes and herbal vapes, which are a large part of the vaping market. Despite the effort put into this study, no attempt was made to analyse the vapes consumers were actually using, and no firm conclusion can be drawn as to the presence of nicotine or any other regulated substance. 

The other study the government cited, Australian secondary school students’ use of alcohol and other substances, is alarming. It showed that 22 per cent of secondary school students had used alcohol in the past month, 10 per cent had used alcohol in the past week, and four per cent were engaging in risky drinking. Why aren’t we worried about that? What hypocrisy to introduce the world’s harshest legislation on vaping and ignore the elephant in the room: teenage drinking. Other drug use is down. Figures for ‘used in the last month’ show black market cannabis use down from 8.1 per cent to 6.6 per cent, hallucinogen use down from 1.1 per cent to 0.8 per cent, MDMA use down from 2.1 per cent to 1.1 per cent, pharmaceutical opioid use down from 1.9 per cent to 1.4 per cent, and cocaine use down from 0.8 per cent to 0.6 per cent. These small reductions are more significant than they appear. With 1.5 million Australians in the secondary school age group, every 0.1 per cent of reduction in hard drug consumption means 1,500 young Australians are not getting addicted to hard drugs. Across all types of hard drugs, the figure is over 50,000 lives saved from the misery of hard drug addiction. 

The scare campaign that vaping is a gateway to smoking and to hard drugs is fraudulent and designed to cover up the reverse, because the reverse is true. The committee did look at the use of vaping as a smoking cessation tool and concluded the evidence was inconclusive. So there is no reason to save vaping on that account. Poor judgement indeed. 

In their deliberations, the committee gave a thought of time to the quit smoking industry, which is funded at $500 million across forward estimates—half a billion dollars! This does not include the financial benefit of fundraising. That half a billion dollars is just the government’s contribution, yet quit smoking rates have been stagnating across the Western world. Firstly, that’s because the few people who still smoke have the money to afford smoking, want to smoke and will continue to smoke. Secondly, there are people for whom the current industry of gums, patches and financial blackmail is just not working. Some people have found that, where these other measures did not work, vaping did work. These are the people who will, no doubt, be forced back to smoking as a result of this bill. Imagine all those extra smokers to keep government revenue rolling in—all those extra smokers to keep the ‘quit smoking’ industry and taxpayer money for years to come. The financial impact statement for this bill doesn’t mention the increase in revenue from smokers being forced back to smoking. I imagine it will be substantial. 

Another failure in this bill is forfeiture. The easiest way to control vaping in schools is to allow teachers to seize vapes when they see them. That provision is not in this bill. Seizure is limited to commercial quantities seized with a court order or any good ‘seized by the control of customers at the border’. The one thing this bill could do to help control adolescent vaping is to allow teachers to seize vapes, and it doesn’t do that. I foreshadow my second reading amendment calling on the federal and state governments to sort out jurisdictional issues and give teachers the power to confiscate and destroy vapes brought into schools without a prescription. 

As a result of measures to ban vaping, organised crime is moving into the illegal tobacco and vape market with horrific consequences. This is not so they can sell our children a nice bergamot herbal vape; it’s so they can sell vapes laced with hard drugs to get our children hooked and to take back the market share vaping has cost them. I have said all along that vapes are as safe as the vape and the liquid inside. A better idea is to provide for a future made in Australia and allow Australian companies to produce legal, quality tested, regulated vapes and then ensure these are, firstly, kept out of the hands of children and, secondly, subject to the same restrictions on use as smoking. 

I look forward to the government monitoring the outcome of this hasty, incomplete bill closely and acting quickly if the outcome is not as expected. I think the outcome will bring horrific consequences, so please monitor this for the sake of our children. 


The Albanese government is legislating to prohibit vaping for recreational use, as an aid to quitting smoking and to sustain smoking cessation efforts. I’ve been receiving numerous messages from Australians who have successfully kicked the smoking habit through vaping. They now either vape a herbal solution to combat the physical habit of smoking, or have completely quit. The Labor government’s move to ban vaping contradicts the international vaping experience.

Health authorities in the UK have found that vaping is a safer alternative to smoking and provides an effective pathway for smokers to quit.

The measures in the bill will, however, allow individuals wanting to quit or who are in the process of quitting, to obtain a prescription from their doctor for a vape. The use of this provision is being disingenuous, as many Australians who are attempting to access vapes to aid them in quitting are finding that either their doctor refuse to prescribe a vape, or the pharmacy does not stock them. 

Additionally, the costs have surged as demand s gone up exponentially as volume has fallen, and as medical establishments take a much larger share of the sale than a tobacco/vape retailer did.

Although there’s concern about children, it’s always been illegal for minors to vape, just as it’s always been illegal for children to smoke cigarettes. While vaping poses less risk to minors than smoking, the ideal scenario is for parents and guardians to prevent their children from engaging in either. The idea that vaping serves as a gateway to smoking is wrong and is not supported by experiences in many other countries like the UK that have legalised vaping.

The Minister’s actions will force vaping underground, evidenced by recent incidents where two vape shops were targeted by organised crime. Illegally supplied vapes will likely be adulterated with addictive substances, manufactured cheaply and with little regard for safety.

This is a health disaster waiting to happen and is entirely foreseeable.

One Nation supports the regulation and licensing of vapes and vaping products exclusively for adult consumers.

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair, and thank you all for being present today. Professor Buchanan, can I confirm your involvement with the University of Wollongong School of Health and Society?

Prof. Buchanan: Yes.

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. The University of Wollongong school of health receives substantial grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council year on year. Is your testimony today completely
independent of the people who fund you?

Prof. Buchanan: I am not funded, Senator Roberts, by the University of Wollongong. I have an honorary position and I receive no funding from the University of Wollongong.

Senator ROBERTS: The university is associated with the Global Challenges Project, which is funded by Open Philanthropy, an organisation that campaigns against smoking specifically by taxing it out of reach of
everyday Australians. Do you support increased taxation rather than vaping as a means of smoking reduction?

Prof. Buchanan: Sorry, Senator; in the last part of your question I got a bang on the microphone and I didn’t catch it.

Senator ROBERTS: Sure. Do you support increased taxation rather than vaping as a means of smoking reduction?

Prof. Buchanan: We support a comprehensive approach to reducing tobacco. Excise is one of those approaches, and there is a range of others. They are all outlined in the National Tobacco Strategy and we support
all of the measures in the National Tobacco Strategy.

Senator ROBERTS: Cancer Research UK have a 100 per cent opposing view to yours. Their analysis of the use of e-cigarettes, ones that are registered with the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, the equivalent of our TGA, states this: Lots of people want to know about the health effects of e-cigarettes … Many studies show that vaping is far less harmful than smoking. This is because e-cigarettes don’t contain cancer-causing tobacco, and most of the toxic chemicals found in cigarettes are not in e-cigarettes. … … … There is no good evidence that vaping causes cancer. … … … Because vaping is far less harmful than smoking, your health could benefit from switching from smoking to vaping. And you will reduce your risk of getting cancer. Who is right — Cancer Research UK or the Australian Cancer Council?

Prof. Buchanan: What we are all saying is that we want to see people who smoke stop smoking, because it is incredibly risky. If some smokers can benefit in quitting by using e-cigarettes then we would support that. We have never not supported that. But we would like to see that support provided through a healthcare professional who can enable that person to make the right clinical decisions to manage their nicotine addiction and then to move forward by helping them to quit vaping. In many of the studies where people have used vaping to quit, we’ve seen an increase in the number of people who dual use rather than quit products altogether, and that is not a good outcome.

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll come to what you’ve said in a minute. Johns Hopkins Medicine also maintains that: Vaping is less harmful than smoking. … … … Regular cigarettes contain 7,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic. … … … … vaping exposes you to fewer toxic chemicals. Professor Buchanan, why are you supporting a bill that exposes smokers to more toxic chemicals than vaping?

Prof. Buchanan: We are not supporting a bill that increases people’s exposure to anything. What we are supporting are ongoing comprehensive tobacco control measures in this country which have proven to be incredibly effective in reducing smoking rates. At the same time, for those smokers who are struggling to quit— and we need to remember that it is a very small percentage of the population—we want them to get the help that they need under the care of a healthcare professional.

Senator ROBERTS: We are on the same track now, then. Professor, the United Kingdom National Health Service says of vaping: Nicotine vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking. It’s also one of the most effective tools for quitting smoking. That is what I think you want. It says: Vaping is not completely harmless and we only recommend it for adult smokers, to support quitting smoking and staying quit. Is the Cancer Council of Australia out of step with the science?

Prof. Buchanan: I think we have already addressed that. What we want to see for people who are looking to quit smoking are evidence based approaches to quit. We know that most Australian people who are looking to quit smoking will quit unaided. For those who need support and cessation aids to quit—and that is not the vast majority of smokers; in fact, the vast majority of smokers who quit smoking do so unaided—there is a strong evidence base of safe, effective, regulated medicines in Australia. E-cigarettes are not one of those and so people should be receiving support for using those products under the care of a healthcare professional.

Senator ROBERTS: My electorate office has been receiving many contacts from real Australians complaining about this measure and saying how much vaping has improved their lives, reduced their nicotine dependency and even helped them quit smoking entirely. Are these people lying or are you protecting the $500 million ‘quit smoking’ industry from a product internationally proven to reduce smoking?

Prof. Buchanan: We have not said anywhere that this product will not help some people to quit smoking. We do believe that it well. But because the nature of the product is that it is not a safe product people are best placed to work with their healthcare professional—

Senator ROBERTS: It’s stated that two out of three—

CHAIR: We need to let the witness finish.

Prof. Buchanan: I do take objection to your implication that we are somehow protecting an industry. We are actually about preventing ill health from smoking and also associated with vaping.

CHAIR: Thank you, witnesses, for staying longer than you were allocated. We appreciate your involvement in our committee. If you have taken questions on notice, we are asking for answers back very quickly—by COB Monday 6 May.

This article was originally published in The Spectator Australia, here.

As I stated in my speech On Freedom in August 2021: ‘On many occasions in the last year I have addressed the Senate in regard to freedom as a counterbalance to medical tyranny.’

The speech was given in relation to the Covid lockdowns unleashed on Australia from March 2020 onward in the name of ‘public health’. During this time another significant, but largely unknown, medical tyranny was inflicted on Australians.

For ‘public health’ reasons, nicotine vaping products (NVPs) came under strict regulation after instruction from the state and federal governments. Vaping products – which now require a prescription – are commonly used as a replacement for harmful alternatives such as cigarettes and cigars.

Despite being widely acknowledged in global studies as a way to quit smoking, they were put under prescription-only use to, ‘balance the need to prevent adolescents and young adults from taking-up nicotine vaping (and potentially smoking).’ Oddly, young adults can still take up smoking directly without a prescription.

There is no guarantee a prescription will be issued, even to existing smokers looking to quit. The comments made alongside the regulatory change make it clear that doctors are ‘under no obligation to prescribe a nicotine vaping product if they do not think it’s appropriate’ and add a strong preference for using existing gums and patches.

From October 1, 2021, consumers require a prescription for all purchases of nicotine vaping products, such as nicotine e-cigarettes, nicotine pods and liquid nicotine. This includes purchases from Australian pharmacies and from overseas. It remains illegal for other Australian retailers, such as tobacconists, ‘vape’ shops and convenience stores, to sell you nicotine vaping products, even if you have a prescription.’

from the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)

This risks establishing a ‘Nicotine Vaping Cartel’.

Cartels act like monopolies, and whether this was intentional or accidental by the state and federal governments, consumers will find the price of vaping products kept artificially high. At the same time, quantity and quality are likely to fall.

None of this appears to be in the interest of ‘public health’. Vaping products are primarily used by smokers to help them quit, with vaping being 95 per cent less harmful (according to the Royal College of Physicians in the UK).

Smoking and vaping are entwined industries – being substitutes, not complements – of each other. The responsiveness of these interlinked industries is known as ‘elasticity’ by economists.

There have been dozens of studies in the past decade, including the 2021 Canadian study which found: ‘The literature on cross-price elasticity emerging from the analysis of massive data banks [supports] that the two product types are substitutes rather than complements.’

2021 American study inter alia further quantified that: ‘A $1.00 increase in e-cigarette prices reduces e-cigarette sales by roughly 29 per cent, while a $1.00 increase in cigarette prices reduces cigarette sales by roughly 7 per cent.’ While a 2018 Australian study concluded: ‘Countries with less restrictive NVP policies would be associated with lower cigarette demand.’

In short, when a government encourages vaping, it eats away at the tobacco market share. Surely, this would be in the interest of ‘public health’?

The question has to be asked why both Australia’s state and federal governments are going out of their way to demonise vaping when their stated objective is citizen health. Cui bono, or who benefits?

Financially, the producers and tax beneficiaries of cigarette sales stand to lose the most from a thriving vaping market. In particular, Australia’s ‘sacred’ Therapeutic Goods Administration – who imposed the regulation – relies on these industries for funds. The TGA states, ‘the vast majority (around 96 per cent) of [their] funding is generated through [industry] fees and charges.’

This 96 per cent translates into around $178 million out of their $185 million 2020-21 revenue. While not all of it comes from the smoking industry, some of it does.

The new laws are already in force, with a $170,000 worth of fines issued to vaping advertisers and importers by the TGA in November, one month after they were implemented. Included in this figure were eight infringement notices worth $106,560 given to Mason Online regarding alleged advertising breaches.

The TGA’s 2020 Regulation Impact Statement (RIS) formed the basis for the Medical Vaping Regime (MVR). It had all the hallmarks of a predetermined outcome in favour of a Monopoly Medical Model. That is, it did not seriously consider any practical alternatives like a Competitive Consumer Model, there were no proper cost benefit analysis performed, and the regulator undertook their own review.

The latter is the most concerning, given it does not align with the Australian standard of best practice since the formation of the National Competition Policy (NCP).

The TGA vaping hub has a web page regarding the next scheduled review of the MVR where it says: ‘The regulatory reforms will be reviewed in the second half of 2022.’ There is really only one organisation in Australia capable of undertaking a well-rounded, unbiased, and inclusive review of MVR: the Productivity Commission (PC) – more specifically in terms of the Productivity Commission Act 1998 (PC Act).

I am naturally very suspicious of any overly big institutions and businesses, but the TGA’s hypocrisy on ‘freezing out’ Big Tobacco whilst unashamedly ‘being in bed’ with Big Pharma really does go ‘beyond the pale’.

The TGA always justifies this through Article 5.3 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control requiring that: ‘In setting and implementing their public health policies with respect to tobacco control, Parties shall act to protect these policies from commercial and vested interests of the tobacco industry in accordance with national law.’

Firstly, Australia is sovereign, not controlled the WHO and their overlords in Beijing. Secondly, ‘public health policies’ should not be about ‘tobacco control’ and prohibition, but about Tobacco Harm Reduction for free and consenting adults. Thirdly, Big Med, Big Pharma, Big Public Health, and Big Government are just as much ‘commercial and vested interests’ as Big Tobacco. All of them have jaded pasts with despicable political regimes.

Thus, given Big Pharma is no better than Big Tobacco, the TGA must let the Productivity Commission do their job in 2022. May the best model win.

Malcolm Roberts is a One Nation Senator for Queensland. This article was co-authored by Darren Brady Nelson – Chief Economist at LibertyWorks Brisbane and a policy advisor to the Heartland Institute.

Thousands of Australians, desperate to quit smoking, will find it almost impossible to purchase nicotine for vaping thanks to Minister Hunt’s capricious decision to ban nicotine imports.

When parliament resumes in August One Nation will move to disallow the new regulations and propose new rules for importing nicotine until local options are available.

“Instead of tackling the issue of illegal importation of nicotine at the border, Minister Hunt imposes draconian regulations that punish vaping users trying to give up smoking,” stated Senator Roberts.

British and New Zealand Governments widely support vaping as one of the most effective ways to quit smoking, however Australia has seen an increase in illegal nicotine supply, likely due to poor Border Force policing.

“This is a lazy decision on behalf of the Minister with zero consultation with industry, users and the medical profession,” Senator Roberts said.

The current laws require a doctor’s prescription prior to importation with proof given to Border Force to allow imports of nicotine for vaping based on prescriptions.

“The increase in illegal nicotine is Border Force not doing their job and not enforcing script-only imports,” said Senator Roberts.

A company needs to spend millions of dollars for research to get nicotine through the TGA process before there is any hope that an Australian chemist can sell it.

Senator Roberts added, “The Government needs to urgently fund the TGA approval process so Australians can buy nicotine for vaping without having to import it. “One Nation supports the use of nicotine for vaping to quit smoking and thousands of Australians can testify to its effectiveness.”

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