The lack of progress on vaping legislation is starting to looking like the Psychoactive Substances Bill fiasco.
In 2013, MPs thought they were regulating the synthetic cannabis market and stopping it from progressing. What they actually passed was a legal framework to legitimise the industry but because of the negative media backlash, the Key Government lost their nerve and wouldn’t legalise the path for products to negotiate to become legal, it left a no mans land of regulation where cowboys swooped into town with product 100s of times stronger than the initial products.
That compounded the negative press which made Key even more reluctant to progress.
In the end, the lack of available pathways towards testing meant the market couldn’t regulate itself and it imploded.
The Key Government pulled the plu entirely, the synthetic cannabis market went underground and dozens and dozens and dozens of NZers were killed.
Good one Parliament!
The same reticence to support vaping (despite it being a far less toxic product than actually smoking cigarettes) is creating the same lack of political leadership we saw with the synthetic cannabis fiasco.
Vaping is a good way to get existing smokers off cigarettes and that should be the focus, harm minimisation.
No advertising, tighter age restrictions, no bloody kid flavours and compelling vaping to abide by the same smoke free public space restrictions we expect of actual tobacco smokers is what is needed and it is what has been promised, but to do so would fly in the face of the anti-tobaccos zealots who see vaping as an insidious interloper rather than an effective tool.
Instead of constantly penalising smokers with price increases, why not provide the vaping alternative?
Is this about the revenue tobacco brings in or the health of the public?
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