Ever wonder why the Australian Government is Anti-Vaping?
Health concerns for its constituents? Could it be that there are not enough voters who vape to warrant a ‘change of mind’ for election purposes?
None of these possibilities really stack up. We know the current Health Minister in Oz, Greg Hunt, is of course notoriously “anti-vaping” but we can’t deny the other side of politics are noticeably silent on the issue also. Considering the amount of studies now conducted overseas (NZ & the UK) in like minded western world countries with Health systems much like our own, the TGA & Health Ministry have seen fit to regulate a prescription model for nicotine use in e-cigarettes. Optimistically, this may well be a tool for working out how many Australian consumers are now using Vapes as a smoking cessation tool, and if there was a long term plan after reviewing these numbers, well, then this might actually make some sort of sense.
As Pro Vaping advocates, we decided to delve a little deeper to see what the real reason might be for the Australian Health Minister and the TGA have put their grubby little hands into the Australian Vape Industry in an effort to curb the use of e-cigarettes? And as usual the devil is in the detail and what a non-smoking nation might mean to the National Budget in Australia:
As you can see the Government collected over $14 Billion dollars in Tobacco excise over the 2020-2021 financial year an actual 5th of the total GST in the country collected and twice that of all the alcohol taxes in the country combined !!
Can the Australian economy afford to ban cigarettes like NZ will be in 2025 or as the UK is now looking at doing also?
Sadly, we think not …………………..
We’d love to hear your thoughts:
Yep, it would appear that Tobacco companies and the government are partners in crime here. Since the covid19 pandemic, the Australian government has lost roughly 2 billion dollars from what they would usually have made in tobacco excise from the Australian public due to a dramatic increase in smoking rates nationwide. This, combined with the complete disaster created by the ban on nicotine sales without a prescription, has caused them to wage an all-out war on vaping.
Sadly it has only accomplished a massive loss of revenue for vape stores here and left anyone unable to get a prescription forced to buy black market vape products- which are not regulated and come with no assurance of the high-quality ingredients or components they were used to buying. They are being sold out of no-brand corner stores and tobacconists by the hundreds, by staff who have no vaping product experience or knowledge and a lack of age verification in these stores has left our industry being threatened as a result of an explosion in underage vapers!
What a mess…
As a direct result of all of the above, they have declared war on vaping and released massive amounts of misinformation to discourage teens from buying them- which has also resulted in adults going back to smoking because they believe what the government is saying about vaping as fact.
It’s beginning to seem like prohibition to me…
Sadly bureaucratic interference only increases unregulated and possibly less healthy products.
The tax on tobacco in Australia is one of the highest in the World, and apart from your health there’s no better incentive to swap fags for vapes !
Along with Vaccine Mandates, Health Policy has clearly become an economic issue.
Taxing nicotine vapes would seem logical, but that would legitimise vaping and make it an essential part of government income.
I can only assume the the Tobacco Lobby is working very hard.
Unless we develop a vaping lobby, get some press and pollies on our side, I can’t see any change.
Be Smart and Keep Vaping !!!!