A Submission on Vaping and Reducing Rates of E-Cigarette Use in Queensland: Health and Environment Committee of the Queensland Parliament

This submission highlights Australia’s National Tobacco Strategy 2023-2030 and its application to the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. This submission provides an analysis of how Federal, State, and Territory Governments in Australia are responding to the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. Furthermore, this submission offers a comparative study of how the United States, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand are dealing with the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. Finally, the submission considers the advice of the World Health Organization in dealing with the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping.This submission supports the plans of the Albanese Government to introduce a new regulatory regime for e-cigarettes and vaping. The Health Minister Mark Butler has proposed a package of proposals - including border controls on non-prescription vapes; minimum quality standards for vapes restrictions on flavours, colours, and other ingredients; pharmaceutical-like plain packaging; reduction of the allowed nicotine concentrations and volumes; and a ban on all single use, disposable vapes. There will also be a public health information campaign to discourage Australians from vaping and smoking. There will be heightened enforcement action to close down the illicit sale of e-cigarettes in convenience stores and other retail settings.This submission highlights that e-cigarettes and vaping have had various adverse effects upon public health, education, and the environment in Queensland. Accordingly, the Queensland Government to raise its ambition in respect of the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. As was introducing a new package of legislative restrictions on e-cigarettes and vaping, the Queensland Government should boost its education campaign, and take enhanced enforcement action over the illicit sale of e-cigarettes and vaping. This submission notes that other states and territories face parallel challenges in respect of the public health crisis in respect of e-cigarettes and vaping. The Queensland Government could draw upon the expertise and experience of its counterparts. VicHealth, in particular, has long been a public health leader in the field of tobacco control. The State and Territory Governments have an important role to play in ensuring a comprehensive system for the enforcement of e-cigarette regulation in Australia. This submission highlights the litigation by States, school districts, Indigenous communities, and others in the United States courts against the e-cigarette company, Juul – resulting in major billion-dollar settlements. It notes that this litigation has documented that e-cigarette companies have caused extensive harms to public health, education, children’s rights, consumer rights, and Indigenous rights in the United States. This submission examines the push for greater legislative and regulatory action in respect of e-cigarettes and vaping by Federal regulators – such as the United States Federal Trade Commission, and the United States Food and Drug Administration. This submission observes that Australian policy-makers and legislators should learn from the United States experience, and take a proper precautionary approach to the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping in Australia, as a result.This submission also explores the debate over the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping in the United Kingdom. It questions whether the laissez-faire approach of the United Kingdom Government to the regulation of e-cigarettes has been at all effective.This submission explores the approach of New Zealand to the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. It highlights how New Zealand policy-makers and legislators are currently reconsidering whether a tougher, stronger approach to the regulation of vaping and e-cigarettes. This submission also showcases the position of the World Health Organization in respect of the regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control 2003 provides a useful set of policy tools, which could be used for the prohibition and the restricted regulation of e-cigarettes and vaping. The World Health Organization has been particularly alarmed by the rise of electronic nicotine delivery systems, calling for the ban or restrictive regulation of such technologies.The Health and Environment Committee of the Queensland Parliament is conducting a separate inquiry into a new anti-smoking bill. The author of this submission has made a separate submission on the topic of the anti-smoking bill. [Final report:Health and Environment Committee, Vaping: An Inquiry into Reducing Rates of e-Cigarette Use in Queensland, Report No. 38, Health and Environment Committee, August 2023, https://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/Work-of-Committees/Committees/Committee-Details?cid=169&id=4242