E-cigarette battle lines being drawn
BIG tobacco is lobbying for more liberal e-cigarette regulations in New Zealand to allow advertising, and even Japanese-style ‘‘vaping’’ parlours.
Manufacturers, including those owned by cigarette companies, would like lighthanded regulations so the industry can boom, arguing e-cigarettes pose negligible health risks, and could help smokers quit traditional cigarettes.
But health lobbyists are worried they are a ‘‘gateway’’ to nicotine addiction and cigarettesmoking. They want tough restrictions, which could be relaxed over time if scientific evidence clears e-cigarettes of being a health hazard.
The fight is being conducted through submissions to the Ministry of Health – which plans to legalise e-cigarettes – over how tightly sales should be regulated.
The ministry isn’t publishing submissions, which closed on Monday. But big tobacco has started trying to influence media attitudes with one e-cigarette company, understood to be owned by a big tobacco company, offering journalists trips to Japan in a bid to educate them about emerging e-cigarette technology.
While they are not opposing restricting e-cigarette sales to minors, makers argue e-cigarettes should not be regulated like ordinary cigarettes.
They argue e-cigarettes are more like coffee, and are opposing a possible total ban on advertising and sponsorship, graphic health warnings and the ‘‘standardised packaging’’ rules that are coming in for cigarettes.
These would limit the proliferation of styles of e-cigarettes and e-cigarette supplies such as multi-flavoured vapour cartridges and e-juices, which come in youth-friendly flavours like watermelon, bubblegum and strawberry.
They also oppose a suggestion that vaping be banned in places like bars.
And above all, they do not want the excise tax that makes cigarettes so expensive being levied on e-cigarettes, claiming that would discourage smokers from switching.
Health academic professor Nick Wilson said nicotine-based products were addictive, and should not be treated as just another consumer product.
‘‘It would be a very naive approach for addictive drugs to be sold anywhere,’’ he said.
Wilson said allowing only licensed pharmacies and specialist vape shops to sell these products meant they could be monitored, adding New Zealand had a poor record of enforcing regulations around restricted products like cigarettes, party pills and alcohol. If New Zealand started out with a liberal regime, for example, allowing dairies and supermarkets to sell e-cigarettes, it would be hard to reverse, he said.