Tasmania vaping laws putting people at risk

Last month, Tasmania's vaping laws changed, and they now go further than federal vaping laws. The Tasmanian government says the laws passed here were watered down and didn't go far enough to protect children and young people from the harms of vaping.

But what about the adult Tasmanians who are now unable to access therapeutic vapes to help them give up smoking?

I don't believe in flat-out bans, and I've spoken about that a lot. Forcing people who use vapes to beat their nicotine addiction to now jump through extra hoops is backwards, and it's dangerous. It pushes people to the black market or back to legal sources of nicotine—cigarettes. Under the laws that came in on 1 October, people in Tassie can legally buy e-cigarettes, e-liquid and vaping devices only from pharmacies and only with a prescription from their doctor.

Let me tell you how this is working in my household. Tim, my partner, was using vapes to quit smoking. His doctor has refused to issue Tim with a script for a nicotine vape and will only give him a non-nicotine script.

Tim is addicted to nicotine. He was using vapes to reduce the amount of nicotine in his body, so guess what? Tim's back on the ciggies. He's smoking again, and that's a direct result of these dangerous vaping laws introduced by the state government.

Tasmanian pharmacists are not happy about being told they should sell nicotine vapes if a person has a script. I don't blame them. Pharmacists want to help people get well, not supply addictive substances.

The point I really want to make is that these laws are not working the way they are supposed to. Instead of Tim using vapes to quit his nicotine addiction, he's now right back where he started and smoking again.

That is some unintended consequence right there.