Online vape seller has ‘no intention of stopping’ shipments to Australia, despite nationwide ban — ‘We have no intention of stopping just because of one twat in Canberra.’::The New Zealand-based seller issued a notice to its Australian customers that shipments will continue regardless of the government’s vape reform.
Whether or not you think Australia should have such a ban, a company trying to provoke a war with a nations customs service is a true “fuck around, and find out” moment
I was just wondering in my pea sized brain how making things illegal in the past has worked out… hrrmmm
Your brain is pea sized indeed, because any nominal amount of wondering should make you realize it has to be taken on a case by case basis. Otherwise we should just make everything legal, no?
This is going to blow your mind but I believe all mind altering substances should be legal and available to purchase if you are 21 years of age. This takes money away from the black market organizations and can help fund rehabilitation facilities/drug education/college scholarships.
People should be able to kill themselves as well if they choose to.
Sometimes it works out great (banning guns in Australia for most people), other times it’s terrible (banning alcohol in America).
But in general, vapes are shit and should be banned. No issues there. This producer will soon be blocked pretty easily.
these things have been flooding in and being sold to kids through vape stores – nine out of ten which have been established within walking distance of schools. That’s no accident, they’re doing that because that is their target market.
That’s some bullshit. I assume there’s already a law banning the sale of vapes to minors.
Schools are built next to residential neighborhoods. Those same neighborhoods with adults living in them are the target market, not kids. Just like cannabis stores are absolutely everywhere now in Canada (including within walking distance of most schools).Given what a pack of absolute shit cunts Australia has been towards NZ in recent years, I fully support any company that wants to make life difficult for the Australian authorities.
What, he’s right. We’ve been shit to NZ
Sure, but this is a fucking vape company. It is not like they are providing a valuable service to society.
So why are cigarettes okay? Last I checked mouth cancer isn’t so much a service as it is a death sentence.
Because the tobacco industry pays the politicians to keep their poison legal.
The only companies with “buy entire legislatures” cash in vaping are the tobacco companies that bought out some of the main competition in order to annihilate it.
Vaping literally saved my life. I tried all other smoking cessation tools including prescription medications for 10 out of the 18 years I smoked. None of it worked for me, but vaping did. It’s been over 3 years since I last smoked OR vaped. And there’s thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of people who are in the same situation I was in.
So you can stfu about it "not being valuable to society "
Exactly. The choice is vaping or smoking, and the current movement is going to push me back to cigarettes. I’d rather vape, and I was well on my way to being able to consider myself quit when the restrictions on obtaining nicotine came into effect.
Yes there may be risks with vaping, I’m all for properly done scientific method, not funded by the ciggy lobby and would volunteer in a heart beat, because in my anecdotal experience I was getting sick far less than when I was smoking.
They definitely shouldn’t be in the hands of kids, and the disposables are absolutely a problem.
They definitely shouldn’t be in the hands of kids, and the disposables are absolutely a problem.
True, we should eliminate all disposables but especially disposable versions of electronic devices, such as for example vapes, which is even more wasteful and harmful to the environment.
As for kids getting them, that’s already illegal everywhere. What’s needed is better enforcement, not making it harder for adults to quit smoking, as I’m sure you agree.
Single use anything! Rawr etc. (I’m a nut who has carried my own water bottle, cutlery and straws for twenty+ years.)
Kids will get their hands on vapes, the same as alcohol, smokes, and so on down the list.
I’d be content with with restrictions that match cigarettes. I am not happy that access is being blocked over a bunch of whataboutisms.
sigh Same song, new lyrics.
Kids will get their hands on vapes, the same as alcohol, smokes, and so on down the list.
But nobody’s talking about making alcohol or cigarettes prescription only.
I’d be content with with restrictions that match cigarettes.
I wouldn’t. I think that keeping vapes away from children should be better enforced, but non-disposable vapes should be freely available for adults trying to quit smoking.
And, although I’m generally adamantly opposed to prohibition as a solution, I think tobacco should be completely banned.
Unlike all the drugs that ARE banned or tightly restricted, tobacco has no therapeutic or recreational benefits. There’s no upside and it’s the number one lifestyle cause of death in the world.
I am not happy that access is being blocked over a bunch of whataboutisms.
sigh Same song, new lyrics
With you there, brother/sister/other… 😮💨
Vaping is still available in Australia as an aid to quit smoking. It just requires a prescription.
Which decreases availability and increases price, both of which makes it unnecessarily difficult for people who just want to not die from smoking-related diseases.
Almost all other smoking cessation methods, which are generally much less effective, contain nicotine and are freely available without a prescription. Those aren’t legal for kids either, which is properly enforced.
To limit vape availability in this way is medically arbitrary symbolic politics and will cost many needless deaths.
Leave vaping alone, but ban those single use vapes with rechargable lithium ion batteries in them. It’s absolutely insane to me the amount of waste from throwing out perfectly good rechargeable batteries after one cycle.
They banned it in its entirety in Australia for health reasons and the children.
Smokes are A ok though
Tobacco lobby go brrrr
Sort of, but honestly the vapes have created a new generation of smokers and they should have banned them much sooner (unless you have a prescription and actual plan to use them to quit smoking). They were much easier for new people to get into and we went from smoking dying out to a sizeable number of young smokers.
The tobacco companies have done very well out of vaping
If the government, 5-10 years ago when it would have been apropos to do so, looked into vaping and drew up specific regulations to have legal vaping, we wouldn’t have the issue we have today. Instead, because of almost a decade of inaction, we now have a new generation of nicotine addicts that they’re hurriedly trying to stop.
We needed regulated, plain-packaged and limited-flavour vapes available to legally buy at a reasonable price to quash out both smoking and prevent kids from getting addicted, but that horse has already bolted.
The cynic in me says they intentionally didn’t regulate vapes because the science wasn’t ready yet, and they didn’t want to accept any blame for legalising something that could end up to be pretty harmful in the long term. So, because they didn’t want to accept that risk then we now have a whole generation of vapers whose health issues we’ll be dealing with for 80+ years to come.
Spoken as an ex-smoker, current vaper as a smoking cessation method.
You had me until “limited flavor”, why? How is the alcohol industry allowed to create insane flavors (blue raspberry, literally any fruit, rocket popsicle, etc) but the tobacco industry can’t? Makes no sense.
Adults should be allowed to enjoy things they want to. Perhaps if the government was stricter with id laws and online ordering we wouldn’t be in this situation. There are far too many shops I’ve seen that don’t check ID and THAT is how kids are getting them. The flavors have nothing to do with it (remember, terrible flavors didn’t stop kids of the 80s from smoking).
IMO it has more to do with online glorification than anything else
Back in my day kids smoked Marlboros because they were cool. Not because they tasted like fruit loops.
As someone who used to smoke 1-2 packs a day, got heavy into vaping (including building my own coils, mods, mixing juice, etc), quit completely by tapering down the nicotine levels, later started back up with pouches, and now vapes pot, I gotta say, banning flavors is fucking stupid.
My state of Massachusetts has banned all flavors of tobacco and vape, Including menthol. You can only get vapor products in unflavored or “tobacco” variants.
The funny thing is, “tobacco” isn’t really a “flavor”. It’s still flavor additives put into the suspension. So the additives clearly aren’t the problem. Tobacco flavored vape products are usually some combination of maple, charred brown sugar, and molasses. Not the actual ingredients, just flavorings that approximate them.
And the additives are generally food grade flavorings. You can legit just go out to Homegoods and buy a pack (as long as you know the right ones, don’t do this at home) and steep a very small amount of whatever flavors you want into your unflavored nic.
My point exactly, the flavors are not the problem. A lot of states have banned them yet the problem persists, because it was never about the flavors. It’s 100% a social thing IMO, online glorification and peer pressure.
Not peer pressure like how its depicted in the media, but real peer pressure. Your friends vape, and they’re always vaping around you – then one day you get a little curious about it and it snowballs from there.
That’s a fair call. I just think all reasonable measures should be taken to limit the attractiveness of vapes to children, and that’s just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not a necessary piece, but I think it would have helped as part of a suite of measures to regulation. I think you’re right in that online glorification definitely had a role to play here as well.
Bleh. Vaping isn’t smoking and it’s not harmful, while nicotine is generally good for the mind and only a fairly mild stim, I couldn’t imagine my mornings without some nicotine, amphetamine and caffeine.
No, do not leave vaping alone. Just because some asshat companiea found a new way to exploit health damage for profit does not mean it should be allowed because freedumb.
Let me consume nicotine in the least harmful method available. You don’t get to dictate what I do with my body. That includes all drugs.
Sure, but can we then tax the product for the actual health risk?
And least damaging? How about gum, or tabs. No popcorn lung involved.
Abortion is bad for the fetus’s health. Perhaps we should tax it 1000%. While we are at it let’s tax Soda and Sugar. Fuck it lets tax cosmetic surgery, I mean it is such a waste and so risky.
If we are going to go down this road of controlling other people’s bodies let’s go all the way then.
Sugar is already being taxed, and this will grow. High fructose should be extra taxed yes. Abortion seems out of place in your rabid “muh freedumbs” response.
There is a responsibility for a government to protect the health of citizens. I can see this (and drugs) being properly regulated. And then people can buy and use as they see fit. But just free sales, no.
Well I’m glad you are there to dictate what someone can and can’t do with their body. We only want people to engage in activities if they are state sanctioned.
The real question here is, are there (mostly) harmless?
They are an excellent and well understood harm reduction measure compared with smoking.
They fill landfills with descartable batteries, causing a lot of contamination. This is not the reason they’re being banned, but it should be.
They also cause popcorn lung, at least the flavoured variety.
This is no longer true.
All forms of inhalation of substances which aren’t air causes damage to the lungs and throat.
The steam from coffee damages your lungs and throat, I never knew that. Are you sure about that?
What about aroma molecules, like sniffing a flower or perfume?Mr. pedantic loves raising pointless nonarguments. Nobody likes mr. pedantic. Don’t be like mr. pedantic, kids.
Unless you’re functionally illiterate, it should be plentifully obvious that I meant particulate substances not expected to be naturally found in the air.
Alright, Mr Black-and-white. Ozone is naturally found in air, and is toxic, as is methane and any other number of organic particles that are released by natural processes.
Apart from your inaccurate use of language, you also made an unsupported assertion. I don’t believe you’re correct.
Australia going full retard again.
Still better than people who smoke (which does include “vaping”)
I have to draw this line because it’s actually really important.
Smoking is when someone inhales smoke.
Vaping is when someone inhales vapour.
These are different in more ways than they are similar, but perhaps the most important is the difference in negative health outcomes. Smoking is about twenty times more harmful than vaping.
Vaping is a very effective path away from smoking for those with a nicotine dependency, and it’s counterproductive to attach the same stigma to both, let alone to consider them equivalent.It is premature to declare vaping safer than smoking, as there is relatively little comprehensive research on the long term effect of vaping. The whole “vaping is safer” spiel is not that different than when doctors were paid to tout the health benefits of cigarettes: propaganda not based in conclusive science.
Ignorant take. When vape products contain, at most, 6 ingredients, all of which have been individually extensively studied, none of which are carcinogenic, and 5 of them are FDA approved for food and pharmaceuticals, theres a pretty obvious harm reduction to inhaling thousands of compounds with at least 70 being carcinogens. So much so that every study you can find will conclude the same.
Here’s a quote from a source I would call a qualified institution on the matter: "In its 2016 assessment, the Royal College of Physicians of London stated: “Although it is not possible to precisely quantify the long-term health risks associated with e-cigarettes, the available data suggest that they are unlikely to exceed 5% of those associated with smoked tobacco products and may well be substantially lower than this figure.”
That isn’t pseudoscience. It’s easily found by a quick Google search.
Conclusively, we’re going to find that the tobacco industry makes far less money off of refined nicotine than it does from tobacco. There’s a reason Phillip Morris bought a 30% stake in Juul, ran their advertising into the ground, and now also exclusively funds anti vaping ads rather than anti tobacco product ads.
They hooked a new generation on nicotine with Juul and are trying to ban vaping to sell their higher profit margin cigarettes.
Whether my conspiracy conjecture is found to be true or not, studies comparing vaping to smoking keep coming to the same conclusion, vaping is less harmful than smoking. If you have a study or information to the opposite I would love to read it.
The number of ingredients is irrelevant, especially since the idea that there are “at most” 6 ingredients is simply wrong: https://hub.jhu.edu/2021/10/07/vaping-unknown-chemicals/
A major area of concern for vaping is the fact that vaping generates much higher concentrations of nano-particles compared to regular cigarettes, and therefore may penetrate much further into the lung material (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312322/ and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0210147). There are also concerns about contaminants, variations in delivery devices (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312322/), and other confounding factors that require a lot more research to ascertain the long term impact.
As for whether I have a study or information contradicting the conclusion that vaping is safer than smoking, it depends on whether you selectively ignore the parts of the studies that say “more research is needed” (because apparently that’s an “ignorant take”), but searching for “peer reviewed articles electronic cigarettes safer than tobacco” returns these top results (I did not cherry pick in any way, and instead took the top results sequentially):
-
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2042098614524430: “In conclusion, toxicological studies have shown significantly lower adverse effects of EC vapor compared with cigarette smoke. Characteristically, the studies performed by using the liquids in their original liquid form have found less favorable results; however, no comparison with tobacco smoke was performed in any of these studies, and they cannot be considered relevant to EC use since the samples were not tested in the form consumed by vapers. More research is needed, including studies on different cell lines such as lung epithelial cells. In addition, it is probably necessary to evaluate a huge number of liquids with different flavors since a minority of them, in an unpredictable manner, appear to raise some concerns when tested in the aerosol form produced by using an EC device.” Granted, it does go on to say that existing evidence shows that vaping is safer than tobacco, but clarifies that there still needs to be more research on some of the unquantified risks of vaping.
-
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469426/ This is an older study using a very small sample size. It focuses on e-cigs as a tool for smoking cessation, but also concludes “Similar to cancer risk, there are no published data describing the long-term lung function or cardiovascular effects of e-cigarettes; ongoing surveillance, especially once e-cigarettes are regulated and standardized, will be necessary.”
-
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0129443 This study was primarily measuring how likely e-cigs were to get people to stop using tobacco, rather than comparative safety (despite the title). The conclusion makes clear that it is not known (at the time; this was 9 years ago) if e-cigarettes could be considered “safe”: “Adding e-cigarettes to tobacco smoking did not facilitate smoking cessation or reduction. If e-cigarette safety will be confirmed, however, the use of e-cigarettes alone may facilitate quitters remaining so.”
I’m not sure what your Google search was, but its probably best not to cherry pick a single source to support your claim.
You’re clearly not cherry picking. If you were, you might have some articles that at least hint that ECs might be more harmful than cigarettes, but none of them come close. The first link you posted gets the closest, but it’s also just an article about one experiment, using 4 liquids that are not recommended in EC communities.
The rest of the actual studies you posted are not about safety. They do not compare disease or illness or death between the two. One of them does compare the amount of toxic chemicals in ECs to cigarettes and finds ECs to have zero. Until there are long term studies comparing the rate of death and disease, no journal is going to publish any definitive answer that ECs are safer than cigarettes. Until then, we will just have a bunch of studies comparing chemical composition, rates and particle sizes. And if it isn’t obvious, chemical composition and their rates are a bit more worrisome than the latter.
If you read through these studies and still think vaping is more harmful than cigarettes, then by all means wait the 50 years it will take the scientific community to out right say the obvious “vaping isn’t healthy, but it is significantly less harmful than traditional tobacco smoking.”
My argument wasn’t “vaping isn’t healthy” or “vaping is more harmful than cigarettes”. It was “more research is needed”, which each of those studies I linked support. Thank you, though, for proving my point in your attempt to build a lovely strawman to argue against.
-
I’m willing to go to war against this vape seller.
