An update on Australia’s ban on sales of e-Cigarettes:

Australia has effectively banned the sale of electronic nicotine delivery devices (ENDS) by using poisons regulations that only allow access to ENDS products demonstrated in randomized control trials to improve smoking cessation. No such products are available. Smokers can, with difficulty, import nicotine if they have a prescription, but few doctors are prepared to prescribe it. The minority of smokers who use ENDS have often illicitly accessed nicotine over the internet. This restrictive policy has been supported by the most of the Australian tobacco control community. Alarm at increased ENDS use among Australian adolescents has prompted a proposal to make access even more difficult by abolishing personal importation and only allowing dispensing of approved products by pharmacists on a prescription.  Illicit importation will attract fines of up to AUD200,000. This paper critically analyses the arguments used to justify Australian ENDS policy and describes how ENDS could be regulated for recreational use in ways that address the concerns about adolescent use raised by those who support a ban.

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