Vaping in Australia Will Be Mostly Banned Under Tough New Rules

Australia’s health minister, Mark Butler, said young people who vape are three times as likely to take up smoking and that people under 25 are the only age group currently recording an increase in smoking rates. He said he wants vaping to return to the purpose that governments and communities were told it was invented for: a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit.

“We were promised this was a pathway out of smoking, not a pathway into smoking,” Mr. Butler told reporters.

Tobacco companies have bet big on vaping as they try to pivot to less-harmful products amid declines in cigarette smoking. But the new policy by Australia, which previously took a hard line on tobacco and pioneered the use of plain packaging on cigarette cartons, adds to a worldwide debate over whether vaping is a reasonable alternative to cigarette smoking or another big danger to public health.

In the U.S., regulators have taken a more active role in overseeing the e-cigarette market, including deciding which products can be sold, following concerns that candy-like flavors and slick marketing were contributing to a rise in vaping among teens. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says e-cigarettes are less harmful than regular cigarettes, but still contain harmful substances and aren’t completely safe. In New Zealand, health officials have encouraged smokers to switch to e-cigarettes, though they acknowledge there are still health risks.

Authorities in Australia have recently been more skeptical. Australia’s National Health and Medical Research Council, a government agency, said last year that because of limited long-term evidence, it is difficult to assess the relative harms and benefits of e-cigarettes compared to regular cigarettes. It also said that e-cigarettes haven’t been proved to be safe and effective aids to help quit smoking.

Some public-health advocates applauded Australia’s tougher rules around e-cigarettes, arguing they will help close loopholes that allowed a black market to flourish and contributed to a rise in vaping among young people, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Australia in 2021 required people to get a prescription to use addictive nicotine vaping products, though non-nicotine vapes were still legal and could be sold online or at retail outlets. But many vapes containing nicotine still made their way into the country because manufacturers either didn’t label them correctly or falsely claimed they were nicotine free, making it easy for consumers to buy them, according to some public-health researchers. Banning all nonprescription vaping products, some advocates argue, will make it easier for border authorities to seize nicotine vaping products and reduce their availability.

“We’re now seeing a really strong, bold, gutsy move by the federal health minister, and all to protect the community, the kids, the teachers and the parents who are battling this issue on the ground,” said Laura Hunter, co-chief executive at the Australian Council on Smoking and Health, which seeks to reduce the impact of smoking. “This is an amazing step.”

Some groups with ties to the tobacco industry questioned whether the new policies would be effective. Theo Foukkare, chief executive at the Australian Association of Convenience Stores, which includes suppliers such as tobacco companies as members, said banning products like vapes that are already mainstream wouldn’t work, and that border officials can’t search every cargo container coming into the country.

Some 1.1 million Australian adults use e-cigarettes, according to a survey released by the association last year.

“Australia is now a global outlier—no other country has taken this approach,” Mr. Foukkare said. “If you’re a vape retailer specifically and you just sell vapes, effectively that whole industry has just been shut down.”

Mr. Butler, the health minister, said the government would provide enough resources for border officials to do the job. He said authorities aren’t blaming the customers, but will instead be focusing its enforcement efforts on importers and vendors.

He said there were no plans to phase out traditional cigarettes, like in neighboring New Zealand, which banned the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. But taxes on tobacco will be increased by an additional 5% a year for three years to dissuade people from smoking. The government will also direct more funds to programs to help Australians quit smoking, and for a public-information campaign to discourage people from vaping and smoking.

“We have a real sense from the community, certainly from the health sector, that we have to deal with this now,” Mr. Butler said. “This is a moment to shut down a major health risk to the youngest generation of Australians.”

Some people expressed concern that the new rules could make it harder for people to stop smoking regular cigarettes. Steve Douglas, who runs a business called Victory Vape that sells non-nicotine vapes and related products, said the new rules will force him to shut down completely, putting 12 employees out of work in addition to him and his wife. Mr. Douglas, who said he succeeded in giving up smoking by using vapes, said people will be more likely to go back to cigarettes because the new rules will make it harder to get vapes.

“We are very antitobacco, I was enslaved to tobacco for 30-something years,” said Mr. Douglas, 67 years old. “We literally started this business because of the success I had in quitting.”

Write to Mike Cherney at [email protected] and Alice Uribe at [email protected]