Vaping bill needs ‘fine tuning’

The ACT Party has slammed the Government’s plan to regulate vaping, labelling it the most damaging public health policy in a generation.

Meanwhile, Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) said there may be some unintended consequences of treating vaping harshly, in line with cigarettes.

Vaping laws will be brought closer to tobacco laws under the proposed law change, including a prohibition on advertising and sponsorship involving vaping products and e-cigarettes.

In contrast to tobacco, the bill will allow all retailers to display products within stores and to display information about, for example, the relative risks of vaping compared with smoking.

The law, which is set to be introduced to Parliament today with a target of being passed by the end of July, will ban sales of vaping products to under-18s, restrict flavours, and bar vapers from lighting up in smoke-free areas. The Government sees vaping as a way to help smokers quit more harmful cigarettes.

But ACT leader David Seymour said the restrictions on vaping flavours and ban on advertising would kill off the best tool to quit cigarettes. Under the proposed law, the sale of flavoured vaping products and e-cigarettes will be restricted to R-18 specialty stores. Only tobacco, mint and menthol flavours may be sold by generic retailers. Seymour said vaping was a safer alternative to smoking and should not be placed on a level playing field with cigarettes.

He said the Government was ‘‘utterly confused’’ and acting on

anecdotes when it came to the concerns of parents and schools.

In April last year, Associate Health Minister Jenny Salesa said only 0.5 per cent of students who had never smoked, vaped daily. Then in June she said people worried that vaping might be a ‘‘gateway’’ to smoking for young people but there was no clear evidence for that.

More work needed

Ash director Deborah Hart said the group generally supported the bill, which she said was a good start. However, she expected there would be some fine tuning during the select committee process. Ash wanted to see a few more than three flavours at service stations and dairies.

Those flavours were associated with smoking and when people used vaping to quit, they needed something not associated with cigarettes, she said.

‘‘We also don’t want to put vapers in the same physical space as the people smoking because that would likely cause people to go back to smoking. And we need to make vape products at least as available as cigarettes.’’

It was positive the Government had realised vaping was the most disruptive mechanism in the fight against smoking, in decades, she said. ‘‘We need to prefer vaping over smoking because it is a much less harmful alternative.’’

Thumbs-up from vapers

Meanwhile, a vape consumer group welcomed the limited flavours and took credit for the suggestion.

Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy co-founder and director Nancy Loucas said the group had approached the Government in 2016 asking for a regulated market. The Ministry of Health had ‘‘absolutely listened’’ when it suggested the administration of limited flavours in petrol stations, in order to restrict youth access.

The group would rather not see vaping regulated the same as tobacco ‘‘but at this point, any regulation is better than no regulation and we are willing to accept that’’. There remained some questions to be dealt with in the regulation – specifically around nicotine limits, she said.

Jonathan Devery, co-owner of e-liquid maker Vapo and spokesman for the Vaping Trade Association, told TV’s Q+A the law was a good first step.

‘‘Any regulation is better than no regulation.’’

Nancy Loucas Vaping advocate