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For months now, the Coalition has been ruminating internally over how to handle the Albanese government's impending ban on the importation and sale of disposable vapes.
The first option – let's call it the Pass The Dutchie option – is to run dead on the proposal, to let the government pursue its plan, crack out the popcorn, and commence a running commentary of everything that goes wrong.
Given that we're talking about a product which right now pretty much any 13-year-old in Australia could get for you without difficulty, and a ban that police have expressed … let's say, mixed enthusiasm for enforcing, Pass The Dutchie would enjoy a target-rich environment.
And Pass The Dutchie became a much more live option last night when it emerged that Health Minister Mark Butler had cut a deal with the Greens to soften the ban, allowing vapes to be sold without prescription in pharmacies, and confirming that the possession of vapes remains decriminalised, even among the very young.
"We wanted to make sure that it was treated as a health issue and kept out of the criminal justice system," Greens leader Adam Bandt said today.
"The changes that we've secured mean now you, the adult vape user, and children as well, won't be criminalised for their vape usage, and can walk down the street with a Rock Princess or a Lush Ice and know that it's not a crime."
(An interpretive note for readers who struggle with Bandt's teen-jive, and are understandably loath to Google "Rock Princess" and "Lush Ice" on a work phone: Lush Ice is a popular fruity vape that tastes like watermelon and menthol. Rock Princess, however, turns out to be a Vera Wang fragrance currently available from Chemist Warehouse at the very reasonable price of $40, and against which no legislative restrictions are presently proposed. Under the government deal, Bandt's children will be legally entitled to stroll down the street in flagrant possession of either. Possibly on the other side of the street from their Dad, who will presumably wear this epic fail like a crown of thorns for the rest of his days.)
Back to the Coalition. When the puff of smoke went up from the Vatican chimney of the Coalition party room this morning, it became clear that the opposition had decided on option two: INHALE!
Shadow health minister Anne Ruston announced that the Coalition will – if elected – reverse the vapes ban and instead install its own system to tax and regulate them similarly to tobacco.
"Labor's prohibition-style approach plays straight into the hands of organised crime syndicates, who are massively profiting from the sale of illegal vapes," she said.
"No Australian wants to see children getting access to vaping products or becoming addicted to vaping. But under Labor, kids are being targeted by a thriving and dangerous black market."
A Dutton government, she confirmed, would go to war with the criminal syndicates by creating a $250 million illegal tobacco and vaping taskforce led by the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Border Force, to stamp out illegal vapes and ensure only safer, legal e-cigarettes were available from customary retailers (one assumes this means service stations, corner shops and so on).
This is the preferred model advanced by much of the National Party and the right wing of the Liberals, a pro-vape posse about 30 of whom in 2020 memorably overpowered their own colleague Greg Hunt. (Street name: The Last Health Minister Who Tried To Ban Vapes.)
Short version? It's on like Donkey Kong.
Strap in for the war on vaping
Vapes are a huge community issue. Every P&C galah is muttering — just ask the parent of any teenager you know — about how easy it is for kids to get vapes, and how maddening it is that nine out of 10 vape shops are within easy walking distance of a school.
Ask teachers how they feel about having to police vaping in the toilets. Ask local government authorities and waste management companies how they feel about the fires that break out in bins, dumps and rubbish trucks from the lithium batteries in discarded vapes.
(Hard stare at you too, Taylor Swift: your flashing concert bracelets are also causing fires in our rubbish dumps — an offence which will be prosecuted separately from The Tortured Poets Department.)
The government, flanked now by the Greens, will argue that its ban on importation and street retail is enough to bring the situation under control. The health minister argues that Border Force has already made significant seizures of imported vapes, and that the stream of illegal imports from China is slowing.
But with the cost of legal, taxed sources of nicotine prohibitively high — a pack of B&H Extra Mild will now set you back $65 — the opportunity for organised crime is being taken up with enthusiasm, as this article from the ABC's Jane Norman memorably demonstrates.
The projected federal budget revenue from tobacco excise this year was to be around $15 billion, but it turned out to be only $10.5 billion. Partly because fewer Aussies are smoking — great! But partly because they are getting their nicotine fixes elsewhere. Not great.
And so Peter Dutton will argue — aided by the alarming rates of arson attacks and the organised crime boom around vape shops, especially in Victoria — that the situation is already beyond control, and only a regulated system can now weed out the crims.
Beside him (it's too early to say, because they only just found out about this Greens deal and are still in the Spluttering Stage) may ride the White Coats — the pharmacists. Led by the redoubtable Trent Twomey, who wept in parliament last year when the government announced its shift to 60-day prescriptions, warning that pharmacies would go to the wall, The Pharmacy Guild is a significant political force.
Just as significant as it was a year ago, in fact, the threatened wipe-out of its members somehow having failed to materialise. Of the government's new deal, the White Coats have so far only said, through an unnamed spokesjacket, that:
"No vaping product has been approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration based on its safety, efficacy or performance. Vaping has long-term patient harms, including cancer, lung-scarring and nicotine addiction … the Senate's expectation that community pharmacies become vape retailers, and vape garbage collectors, is insulting."
Further information as it comes to hand. The only really reliable assumption is that Butler will never get a prescription filled in this town again.
This is the Coalition sticking its neck out
Enthusiasts for a regulated vapes scheme argue that it would create a new stream of federal excise, as well as thwarting crooks.
Awkwardly, these enthusiasts include Big Tobacco, whose profits are even more under threat than the federal budget, and whose money is these days only accepted by one major political party — the Nationals, among whose ranks the support for a regulatory scheme is strongest.
Valid to wonder, too, whether this new-found disdain for prohibition as a failed system will be extended by the Coalition to any drugs that are not walked into the political arena on the leash of a donor: Heroin? Cocaine? Unlikely.
But yes: this is the Coalition sticking its neck out. And yes: this is occurring in a fortnight that is already in no way notable for its shortage of Coalition neck.
Two weeks ago, Peter Dutton was a cautious operator who preferred to wait for the government to make a mistake, before wading in. Today, he's an alternative prime minister whose to-do list includes the speedy construction of seven nuclear power plants, and the commencement of a ground war against organised crime.
Underpants to the outside!
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