29/05/2023
Why Australia decided to quit its va**ng habit
6:59 pm on 28 May 2023
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A teenager smokes an e-cigarette.Teachers and health experts say the numbers of young people using v**es is concerning Photo: Unsplash
By Tom Housden, BBC News, Sydney
"The horse has bolted now, they are addicted," says Chris, a high school teacher in New South Wales.
He is talking about students in his class, teenagers, who can not stop va**ng.
He sees the effect of the candy-flavoured, ni****ne-packed e-ci******es on young minds every day, with children even va**ng in class.
"The ones who are deepest into it will just get up out of their seat, or they'll be fidgeting or nervous. The worst offenders will just walk out because they're literally in withdrawal."
Those who were most addicted needed ni****ne patches or rehabilitation, he said, talking about 13 and 14-year-olds.
Earlier this month the Australian government decided enough was enough and introduced a range of new restrictions. Despite v**es already being illegal for many, under new legislation they would become available by prescription only.
The number of va**ng teenagers in Australia soared in recent years and authorities said it was the "number one behavioural issue" in schools across the country.
And they blamed disposable v**es - which some experts said could be more addictive than he**in and co***ne - but, at least for now, were available in Australia in every convenience store, next to the chocolate bars at the counter.
For concerned teachers like Chris, their hands were tied.
"If we suspect they have a v**e, all we can really do is tell them to go to the principal's office.
"At my old school, my head teacher told me he wanted to install v**e detector alarms in the toilet, but apparently we weren't allowed to because that would be an invasion of privacy."
E-ci******es had been sold as a safer alternative to to***co, as they do not produce tar - the primary cause of lung cancer.
Some countries continued to promote them with public health initiatives to help cigarette smokers switch to a less deadly habit.
Last month, the UK government announced plans to hand out free va**ng starter kits to one million smokers in England to get smoking rates below 5 percent by 2030.
But Australia's government said evidence that e-ci******es help smokers quit was insufficient for now. Instead, research showed it could push young v**ers into taking up smoking later in life.
'Generation V**e'
V**es, or e-ci******es, are lithium battery-powered devices that have cartridges filled with liquids containing ni****ne, artificial flavourings, and other chemicals.
The liquid is heated, turned into a vapour and inhaled into the user's lungs.
Va**ng took off from the mid-2000s and there were some 81 million v**ers worldwide in 2021, according to the Global State of To***co Harm Reduction group.
Fuelling the rise was the mushrooming popularity of flavoured v**es designed to appeal to the young.
These products could contain far higher volumes of ni****ne than regular ci******es, while some devices sold as 'ni****ne-free' could actually hold large amounts.
The chemical cocktail also contained formaldehyde and acetaldehyde - which had been linked to lung disease, heart disease, and cancer.
There was also the suggestion of an increased risk of stroke, respiratory infection, and impaired lung function.
Experts have warned not enough is known about the long-term health effects. But some alarming data had already been drawn out.
Va**ngPhoto: AFP/ ANP MAG - Koen van Weel
In 2020, US health authorities identified more than 2800 cases of e-cigarette or va**ng-related lung injury. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention found 68 deaths attributed to that injury.
In Australia, a major study by leading charity The Cancer Council found more than half of all children who had ever v**ed had used an e-cigarette they knew contained ni****ne and thought that va**ng was a socially acceptable behaviour.
School-age children were being supplied with e-ci******es through friends or "dealers" inside and outside school, or from convenience stores and to***conists, the report said.
Teens also reported purchasing v**es through social media, websites and at pop-up v**e stores, the Generation V**e project found.
"Whichever way teenagers obtain e-ci******es, they are all illegal, yet it's happening under the noses of federal and state authorities", report author and Cancer Council chair Anita Dessaix said.
"All Australian governments say they're committed to ensuring e-ci******es are only accessed by smokers with a prescription trying to quit - yet a crisis in youth e-cigarette use is unfolding in plain view."
In addition to the government's move to ban the import of all non-pharmaceutical va**ng products - meaning they could now only be bought with a prescription - all single-use disposable v**es would be made illegal.
The volume and concentration of ni****ne in e-ci******es would also be restricted, and both flavours and packaging must be plain and carry warning labels.
But these new measures were not actually all that drastic, said public health physician Professor Emily Banks from the Australian National University.
"Australia is not an outlier. It is unique to have a prescription-only model, but other places actually ban them completely, and that includes almost all of Latin America, India, Thailand and Japan."
'We have been duped'
Australia's Minister for Health Mark Butler said the new va**ng regulations would close the "biggest loophole in Australian healthcare history".
"Just like they did with smoking... 'Big To***co' has taken another addictive product, wrapped it in shiny packaging and added sweet flavours to create a new generation of ni****ne addicts."
"We have been duped", he said.
Medical experts agree.
Prof Banks argued the promotion of e-ci******es as a "healthier" alternative was a classic "sleight-of-hand" from the to***co industry.
As such, va**ng had become "normalised" in Australia, and in the UK too.
"There's over 17,000 flavours, and the majority of use is not for smoking cessation", she told the BBC.
"They're being heavily marketed towards children and adolescents. People who are smoking and using e-ci******es - that's the most common pattern of use, dual use."
Professor Banks said authorities needed to "de-normalise" va**ng among teenagers and to make v**es much harder to get hold of.
"Kids are interpreting the fact that they can very easily get hold of [v**es] as evidence [they're safe], and they're actually saying, 'well, if they were that unsafe, I wouldn't be able to buy one at the coffee shop'.
But could stricter controls make it harder for people who do turn to v**es hoping to quit or cut down on to***co?
"It is important to bear in mind that for some people, e-ci******es have really helped. But we shouldn't say 'this is great for smokers to quit', said Prof Banks.
"We know from Australia, from the US, from Europe, that two-thirds to three-quarters of people who quit smoking successfully, do so unaided."
"You're trying to bring these [v**es] in saying they're a great way to quit smoking, but actually we've got bubble gum flavoured v**es being used by 13-year-olds in the school toilets. That is not what the community signed up for."
-BBC
Tags:
health
Australia
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