Letter to Anthony Albanese from Scott Hewitt

One of my close friends has just sent the following to Anthony Albanese, Australia’s current Prime Minister. If you currently use an electronic cigarette as a way to steer clear of tobacco products, I strongly suggest you compose a similar letter and send it to:

https://www.pm.gov.au/contact-your-pm

To Anthony Albanese,

I have voted for the Labor candidate in my electorate at every local, State and Federal Election since I turned 18 in 1987.
To the issue of ‘vaping’: I DO NOT vape for recreation. I vape nicotine to maintain my dependence on a legal drug in a manner which is far safer and better for my long term health than smoking a cigarette could ever be.
Six years ago I switched permanently from a 36 year long tobacco smoking habit to full time daily use of electronic cigarettes with nicotine. Since then, your predecessors and now Your government have labelled me as a criminal, treated me like an uneducated child and effectively bent over backwards to send me back to that cigarette habit.
Why?
Three reasons:

1. State and Federal legislators are simply unaware of the differences between types of electronic cigarette;
2. The distinct lack of affirmative action by authorities to aggressively prosecute any vendor selling electronic cigarette devices to minors, and
3. The government’s desire to recoup losses incurred by Treasury (less tobacco tax revenue) and ‘Big Pharma’ (less non-prescription products such as patches, gums and mouth sprays being sold).

‘Disposable’ vapes and other ‘closed system’ (ie. pre-filled) devices have taken foothold in our country after the Liberal Government’s implementation of a ‘prescription model’ for liquid nicotine sales to adults. Any perusal of public health statistics prior to October 2021, along with referrals from schools regarding use of electronic cigarettes by children, will indicate the overwhelming failure of that policy considering the marked increase in use of illicit ‘disposable vapes’ by both school aged persons and youth since the policy’s introduction. Sadly, your Health Minister Mark Butler MP has now exacerbated that ‘black market’ (which the Morrison Government brought into existence) by ‘doubling down’ on Greg Hunt MP’s policy and turning it into what is one of the most unsocial and Draconian reforms to ever be submitted to the Australian Parliament.

With that, I strongly suggest you reconsider the implementation of Mark Butler MP’s ban on electronic cigarettes, which will destroy over 5000 legitimate busineses and force Australians back to cigarette smoking, which as you may be aware kills over 22,000 people in this country every year. Come out and talk to people who have actually quit using tobacco products permanently by switching to nicotine vaping. Common sense must be employed here. Either that or you can expect the one million electronic cigarette users in this country to boycott the Labor Party at every election until the end of time.

In closing, I ask for an honest answer to this question:
If properly regulated nicotine vaping is good enough for 15 million+ smokers in the United Kingdom, 10 million+ Canadian smokers and over 1.5 million in New Zealand – when all of those nations have much lower smoking rates than Australia – why can’t the policies enjoyed by people living in those countries be implemented here?