Retailers in Australia are urging the Federal Government to adopt New Zealand’s approach to vape regulation, calling for regulated retail access to smoking cessation products.
The Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) is calling for regulated retail access to smoking cessation products by retailers following comments from New Zealand’s Minister for Customs and Associate Minister for Health, Casey Costello, who highlighted her country’s success in reducing smoking and vaping rates.
“New Zealand has control over vapes and who buys them because its government has seen the global evidence and actually recognised that allowing retailers to sell strictly regulated vapes to adults – where lolly flavours and single use devices are banned – does help adult smokers quit tobacco and deters young people from taking up smoking and vaping altogether,” Minister Costello told The Daily Telegraph.
Theo Foukkare, CEO of AACS, praised the New Zealand model and said it’s time for Australia to follow suit.
“It’s safe to be a genuine, law-abiding retailer in New Zealand who sells government approved tobacco and nicotine vapes – but it’s bloody terrifying for our members in Australia, who are at the mercy of criminal gangs that threaten to, and often do, fire bomb their stores if they don’t sell dodgy, illegal vapes and illicit tobacco for them.
“When will the Australian Federal Government finally realise it has failed on community health and safety, and failed retailers by putting their safety at risk, while sending their businesses broke because it is marrying itself to its failed vape and tobacco excise policy?”
Foukkare said that excessive taxes on tobacco are pushing adult smokers to illegal alternatives and empowering criminal groups.
“AACS has been calling for Australia to follow a similar path to New Zealand policy for years now and – in that time – all we’ve seen is crime grow and law-abiding retailers run out of business, while adult Australians are giving up legal regulated tobacco for illicit cigarettes and illegal vapes.
“It’s time to burst the ideological bubble and face up to the hard facts,” Foukkare said.
