Pharmacists will be able to sell vapes without a prescription, after world-first reforms labelled ‘good but not perfect’ by doctors passed Federal Parliament this week.
But not everyone is happy about the new laws, with at least one pharmacy chain saying it will refuse to deal with vaping products.
The first of the changes come into effect from Monday, which will see recreational vapes banned and plain-packaged, non-flavoured therapeutic products permitted only with a doctor’s prescription.
The bigger changes come in from October, when vapes will only be able to be sold to adults at pharmacies, but as a Schedule 3 medication without the need for a script.
Pharmacists will be able to sell vapes with limited nicotine content over the counter, once they have a discussion with the customer about health harms and confirm they are over 18. People under 18 will still need a prescription to buy vapes, if their GP deems it medically necessary.
The laws are a watered-down version of the original legislation, which would have required people to always get a prescription to access vapes. The laws were changed following negotiations in the Senate, after the Greens raised concerns about criminalising users and the costs of seeing a GP.
Health Minister Mark Butler said the changes would protect young people from being hooked on nicotine through vaping,
“We are not going to stand by and let our new generation be recruited to nicotine addiction, not after all of the death and the dislocation and the grief that we have seen for decades and decades because of tobacco,” he told parliament on Thursday.
“This product was sold to us as a therapeutic good. It was never presented as a recreational product, particularly not one that would be so cynically, so transparently, marketed to our children.”
While the vaping laws are federal legislation, they will be enforced by state and territory police.
The troops are divided
Doctors’ groups including the AMA and RACGP and health advocates such as the Australian Council on Smoking and Health are largely supportive, labelling the changes as not perfect but a good step in the right direction.
However, some public health groups argue it was a missed opportunity to ban vapes more comprehensively and have accused the Government of caving in at the eleventh hour.
Pharmacists are also unhappy, with the deal denounced as “insulting” by the Pharmacy Guild, which says it will turn them into vape retailers and “vape garbage collectors.”
Management at one chain, Blooms the Chemist, has told its pharmacy network that it feels strongly that it would be unethical for its retail health brand to do business with a tobacco company.
“Some of the manufacturers/suppliers of vapes are tobacco manufacturers, the most notable being tobacco giant, Philip Morris,” CEO Emmanuel Vavoulas said in a statement.
“(We) will not be negotiating any deals on vaping products on behalf of the store network. I understand that as health professionals, pharmacists need to make clinical decisions in the best interest of the patient. This decision is 100% yours to make.”
But Mr Butler told media that pharmacies had been selling vapes for some time and it was always proposed that they would continue to sell them under the reforms that the government had put together.
AMA national president Dr Nicole Higgins also agreed there was an element of hypocrisy.
“The Pharmacy Guild don’t want to be considered tobacconists and yet they’re willing to dispense vapes that have been prescribed by a GP,” she said.
“[Pharmacists] can’t have it both ways — if they want to be supporting people’s health journeys, they also need to help them quit smoking and quit vaping, not just treat UTIs.”