The Australian Minister of Health has unveiled new measures to combat smoking. After multiple increases in the price of cigarette packs, since 2012, Australia will now tackle electronic cigarettes by banning single-use vapes.
New turn of the screw in Australia. This Tuesday, May 2, Mark Butler, the Australian Minister of Health, announced new restrictive measures to fight against smoking, especially among young people.
While a group of doctors, tobaccologists and French climate defenders wrote a forum to call for a ban on “puff” vapers in France, Australia took a step ahead by announcing this ban. disposable vaporizers as part of new announcements in the 2023-2024 budget.
In addition to this measure, Canberra also intends to put an end to imports of e-cigarettes that can be delivered without a prescription. The use of the vaporizer will now be reserved only for Australian citizens holding a medical prescription, obtained as part of a process of weaning from conventional cigarettes. Users of these devices will also see the nicotine level drop in vaping liquids.
During the presentation of these new measures, the Australian Minister of Health explained that “vaping has been sold to governments and to the world as a therapeutic product intended to help long-term smokers to quit”. “It was not sold as a recreational product, especially not for our children,” added Mark Butler.
Smoking on the rise among young Australians
The implementation of these restrictions comes as smoking figures worsen among young Australians. If the “Down Under” has one of the lowest daily smoking rates in the world, with only 10.1% of daily smokers (compared to 18.5% in 2011-2012), the number of young people under 25 years who started smoking has however increased according to the Australian Institute of Health and Wellbeing.
“Vaping has become the number one behavioral problem in secondary schools. And it’s spreading through primary schools,” Health Minister Mark Butler said in his speech.
“As with tobacco, the world’s biggest companies in the industry have taken another addictive product, wrapped it in glitzy packaging and added flavorings to create a new generation of nicotine addicts,” a- he said.
So, to try to stem the phenomenon among young people, the government also wants to break the attractiveness of vapers by limiting “in particular the flavors, the colors” of electronic cigarette liquids. All in order to avoid seeing the tobacco industry succeed in making Australian teenagers a “generation addicted to nicotine”, according to the accusing remarks of Minister Butler.
New taxes on cigarette packs
Billed as the country’s biggest tobacco reform in a decade, Australia’s tobacco control policy, dubbed “The Strategy”, aims to “reduce daily smoking prevalence to less than 10% by 2025 and to 5 % or less by 2030,” according to the press release issued by the Australian Department of Health.
For this, Canberra will also continue to increase its tobacco taxes, at the rate of an increase of 5% per year over the next three years.
This new package of measures, which complements an initial plan presented in November 2022, is part of a fierce policy to combat smoking in Australia, a country where the pack of cigarettes is considered one of the most expensive in the world. fashion. A pack of 25 cigarettes sells for around 50 Australian dollars, or a price of around €30.
According to the Australian Department of Health, “these changes will bring in an additional $3.3 billion over the next four years, including $290 million in state and territory tax payments”, which will help “support (the) system health and the health of current and former smokers and vapers”.
