Senator In Australia Calls For Domestic Vaping Manufacturing Industry In New South Wales

Could a domestic vaping industry be in the works in Australia? If NSW state MP Michael Johnsen has his way, that’s what could be on the horizon.

After quitting smoking with e-cigarettes, Johnsen is now at the forefront of the fight for vaper’s rights in Australia. His campaign, which is called Vape The State, calls for the government of New South Wales to support a domestic vaping industry that would manufacture vaping products in NSW.

Doing so, by his account, would ensure that vaping products made in the state would be produced and sold at the highest possible safety standards.

As for the money generated by the legalisation of vaping in the state and the new manufacturing industry he hopes the state will help establish, his campaign calls for the revenue to be directed to a yet to be formed regional health fund.

Johnsen also wants the state to recognize the evidence that vaping is a proven smoking cessation method that is much safer than smoking conventional cigarettes.

Meanwhile, the Australian Government is taking steps towards a prescription model for all nicotine vaping products that would require Australians to obtain a prescription for nicotine vaping products from a licensed doctor. To this end, Johnsen has positioned himself as the opposition, calling on regulators to make vaping products as easy to obtain as cigarettes so that other smokers have the same opportunity as him to use vaping products to quit smoking.

Johnsen’s story of quitting smoking with e-cigarettes is an impressive one. After 40 years of heavy smoking, he managed to be smoke-free for over a year with the help of vaping. Not surprisingly, he feels fantastic.

His story, which he shared with the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association, can be seen in this video:

Australia is home to an estimated 500,000+ vapers, but their ability to get the nicotine vaping liquid that many of them need to stay off cigarettes is in a state of constant peril. Last year, the country’s health minister attempted to ban the importation of nicotine vaping liquid, however, that ban was postponed before being sidelined by the recommendation of a senate select committee examining vaping, which recommended a prescription model that appears to be what’s next in store for Australia’s vapers. Johnsen’s campaign, if successful, could possibly derail the prescription model in favor of a regulatory framework similar to that of cigarettes in the country in which adults can purchase nicotine vaping products at local stores so long as they are of legal age.

Johnsen is by no means alone in his belief that vaping products should be as accessible as cigarettes are in the country. The leader of the senate select committee that opened an inquiry into vaping last year, Senator Hollie Hughes, also quit smoking with vaping products and has taken a similar position as Johnsen, calling for vaping products to be regulated as consumer products and sold like cigarettes are, which is to say at local stores across the country.

The first step towards achieving Johnsen’s goal of allowing nicotine vaping products to be sold locally like cigarettes are is to amend the Poisons List to exclude nicotine when it is used in the preparation of vaping products.

If unclear to some readers, the reality in Australia today is that cigarettes are more accessible to Australians than nicotine vaping products, which international research has shown to be significantly less harmful.

Until then, the country’s many vapers continue to import their nicotine vaping liquids by shopping online with companies that are based outside of Australia, which is a practice that has been allowed by the Therapeutic Goods Administration that regulates medicines, medical devices, blood products, pathology devices, and most other therapeutics.