Alarming new research shows only three per cent of Australian vapers buy their products legally, with the black market thriving despite the Albanian government’s ban on importing disposable vapes.
The research, published on Monday by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, also found that Australian men who vape are 33 per cent more likely to use illicit drugs in the future.
National MP Barnaby Joyce said Australians were engaging with criminals when purchasing vapes and claimed the mafia now controls the illegal vape trade.
“When they go to buy their vapes with all the colors, they also know the person who sells them ice, heroin, dope, meth, all the other things that you would never want from this person.” get together,” she said.
Parliament is expected to vote on laws to combat vaping later this month, but Nationals are opposed to the government’s third tranche of anti-vaping legislation, which they want to tax rather than ban vaping products sold without a prescription.
National MP Barnaby Joyce said Australians were engaging with criminals when purchasing vapes and claimed the mafia now controls the illegal vape trade.
Alarming new research shows only three per cent of Australian vapers buy their products legally
Industry models have projected that, if legalized and subject to an excise tax, vapes could bring states like Victoria and New South Wales an additional $600 million in GST over four years.
Joyce said regulating vaping products similarly to cigarettes and alcohol would limit revenue entering the black market.
However, he said he would not support similar regulation of other illicit substances such as cannabis.
“People are making money from this (vaping), mainly the mafia, and if you want to fix that, you have to regulate it,” he said.
“The problem we have with vaporizers is… I don’t vape, they’re not good for you and they’ll kill you, but so are cigarettes, and they’re legal.”
The third tranche of Labour’s anti-vaping rules would ban the manufacture, advertising, supply and commercial possession of non-therapeutic vaporisers in the country.
Previous legislation, which went into effect in January, banned the importation of vaporizers and increased enforcement activity.
However, disposable vaporizers were still being sold illegally in many convenience stores across the country, with a black market operating in plain sight despite the strict new rules.
Brian Marlow, campaign director for Legalize Vaping Australia, said the Albanian government’s vaping rules have failed.
He wants vaping products to be legalized to stop the rampant black market.
“Just look at New Zealand, which has reduced youth vaping by 19 percent since strictly regulating vaping as an adult-only product sold in the same highly controlled manner as alcohol and tobacco,” he said. Mr. Marlow.
‘In the United States, the story is similar. Youth vaping has been in continued decline, falling 64 percent since 2019, according to the US Center for Disease Control. Over the same period in Australia, youth vaping increased by 439 percent.
“More than 90 per cent of vapes sold in Australia come from the black market,” Marlow said.
‘With over a million vapers in Australia, we’re looking at a multi-billion dollar industry that the federal government has no real plan to legalise.
“We are the only country in the world with such a serious problem.”
At a Senate inquiry, Deakin University criminologist Dr James Martin criticized the government’s strict stance against vaping.
He said Labour’s vaping bans have resulted in the country’s second-largest illegal drugs market and a massive new front in the war on drugs.
“The consequences of this ban have been disastrous: nine out of ten vapers have already rejected the prescription model and instead buy their products on the black market,” he said.