Page 2221 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 3 August 2021
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Another example, although one that is soon to be rectified, is that liquid nicotine is classed as a schedule 7 poison and is regulated under the ACT’s Medicines, Poisons and Therapeutic Goods Act 2008, which makes it illegal to supply nicotine e-cigarettes and liquid nicotine without a prescription from an Australian medical practitioner, but currently commonwealth law is less strict.
From 1 October this year, however, changes to the commonwealth poisons standard will take effect, aligning the commonwealth instrument with our law. This means Australians will no longer be able to buy or import nicotine e-cigarettes or nicotine vaping products from overseas websites without a valid doctor’s prescription, reinforcing the need to have a doctor’s prescription before purchasing nicotine e-cigarettes from any source.
From 1 October 2021, child resistant closures for nicotine vaping products will also become mandatory to reduce the risk to children of accidental ingestion. Dr Paterson has spoken about how terrible the outcomes of that can be. These changes are welcome and will provide some additional protections to young people by reducing their access to nicotine e-cigarettes. However, we know that there are currently significant imports of these products occurring and it is unclear how effectively border measures will control the illegal supply of these products into Australia.
I consider that it is critical to protect Australia’s tobacco control achievements as well as to protect children and young people from initiation to tobacco and e-cigarettes. As Dr Paterson notes, in November 2020 the ACT government made a submission to the Select Committee on Tobacco Harm Reduction, calling on the commonwealth to introduce improved protections for children, including effective internet safeguards, a national regulatory approach to flavoured nicotine vaping products, e-cigarette packaging, health warnings and childproof packaging for nicotine liquid and nicotine salts. We advocated for the commonwealth to regulate non-nicotine e-cigarettes to further protect children and young people.
The commonwealth changes that come into effect on 1 October will go part-way to addressing our request for health warnings and childproof packaging for nicotine liquid and nicotine salts. However, these requirements will only apply to products supplied in Australia and not to e-cigarettes imported from overseas suppliers using the personal importation scheme. This means that ACT children may still be at risk of poisoning from products legally imported under this scheme. The changes will also not place any controls on e-cigarette products that do not contain nicotine, even though purchasers of non-nicotine products may add nicotine to them.
It is likely to be several years before we know whether commonwealth amendments to tobacco advertising and packaging legislation will address the current issues with internet supplies, flavours, packaging and non-nicotine e-cigarettes. That is why this motion and the ACT government’s work, in partnership with the commonwealth and other jurisdictions, is so important. It is also why I recently wrote to the commonwealth minister for health, seeking that health ministers get a report back on the analysis of the harms of e-cigarettes that we requested in 2019. That work has been disrupted by COVID, but it is absolutely critical that it continue apace.
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