I remember the Terry White chemists protesting the longer script legislation because it would destroy their business of hocking shit nobody needs when pensioners can renew their script every 8 weeks instead of 4, saving a few dollars of script fees. Now they're throwing away endless vape sales foot traffic?
Came here to say this. So they have no problem pushing perfumes, cosmetics, or even scientifically disproven supplements at high inflated prices, and now they simply don’t want to sell something with massive markups? WTF seriously?
Community pharmacy is in really bad shape currently and getting worse and the government couldn’t care less. They keep letting the corrupt corporations like guild screw everyone over, especially CWH which are undercutting other stores and driving them out of business. Pretty shocking how things are going. And making pharmacies less vapes is an incredible insult to the industry lmao, an absolute joke. Not to mention how they let pharmacies sells lotto tickets…
Yeah it’s strange isn’t it, doesn’t make sense with their recent actions, you would think a money grubbing retailer would love to be the exclusive supplier of an addictive product?
Not just that
An addictive product with such high markups/profit margins and nearly ZERO work required other than checking the person is 18 or older. No record keeping needed, no script dispensing, nothing. Just stock, sell, profit, repeat.
Very odd, I’m surprised by the reaction. The government doesn’t want it, the greens forced them. So it’s not like they going to get a subsidy. So ether they have been told not to by the government in liew of something better or they actually think it will hurt their brand identity haha, after the 60 day dispensing rubbish not likely.
The situation has me perplexed.
Pharmacy: sells quackery-based, scientifically-disproven homeopathy treatments and other shit, as well as lollies, soft drinks, cosmetics, toiletries, and perfumes.
Also pharmacy: Want us to sell fucking vapes? Deus Meus! What about our rEPuTaaaYsHunN?
Nah the subsidy angle doesn’t make sense, remember the original policy/legislation was to outright ban. However the greens forced them to allow pharmacies. So the government has no interest in forcing pharmacies, so why would they want to subsidies.
The whole thing has me perplexed, it doesn’t make sense. Retailer to exclusive rights to highly addictive product, and what’s more forced into it. I’m surprised the party line, wasn’t we don’t want to sell capes but we will for the good of the Australia people, but no outright saying we won’t.
Personal I think prohibition never works, never has and never will. Drugs, alcohol, Tobacco, at best it creates a black market at worse it creates massive gang land wars.
Duttons policy alternative is crazy, standard law and order response that never works.
I suspect that they won't be very profitable to sell / stock at all...
For those who are using the corner shop disposables nothing has changed, they will still be cheaper than the pharmacy option, and easier to find if the article is accurate.
For those who are using the mod + tank approach, going by the subreddit, most people seem to have a lifetime's supply of nicotine sitting in the freezer, and enough juice and hardware to last them for years, and going from spending like $5 a week to however much the pharmacy model is won't be an attractive option at all.
I don’t think you understand the legislation. Anything that looks like a vape, is used in a vape, is put in a vape, cannot be sold by a corner store.
Ironically, a humidifying CPAP machine is illegal now, as is any vapour juice that you would put it in, such as water. Thankfully the minister has the power to deem any product to be legal or illegal.
I’m glad they left a glaring big loop hole in the legislation. I know exactly what the next big thing is going to be.
Since 2023. Nicotine vapes were always illegal but not strictly inforced, no specific legislation preventing importation. Vapes in general were legal until 2023, not until 2024 that even non-nicotine vapes became illegal.
Selling or importing any part of a vape device or liquid is now a specifically called out criminal offence with non-trivial fines and prison time? Penalties for businesses are 10x that for personal use, you can’t even advertise that you sell anything related to vapes. Might be a slight deterrent.
Don’t know where you are but the grey market has been drying up for 6 months since they announced their plan.
I’ve got no horse in this race but one of the guys at work managed to kick smoking after 20+ years thanks to vapes. He’s on nicotine free ones now, but ironically they are the ones you won’t be able to buy anymore. Crazy corrupt world we live in.
Oh my! That is certainly going to stop them! Just like it's stopped the millions of illegally imported cigarettes coming into Australia!
Golly gosh! Silly me! Prohibition really is the way forward here guys!
>a humidifying CPAP machine is illegal now, as is any vapour juice that you would put it in, such as water
oh fuck! This is a game changer! I can vape in my sleep now
They sell vapes at pharmacists already, but you need a prescription. The proposed changes will remove this and let anyone buy one.
The pharmacy guild is just having a big whinge because they'll lose out on the prescription revenue.
>The pharmacy guild is just having a big whinge because they'll lose out on the prescription revenue.
According to the article the pharmacy guild was actually trying to get vapes to be a schedule 2 drug rather than the schedule 3 drug that it is now. The difference is that the pharmacist has to have a talk with the buyer before buying a schedule 3 drug over a schedule 2 drug which is just sold over the counter.
More like turning a pharmacy into a smoke shop. Apparently vape shops selling nicotine-free vapes over the counter is bad, but selling nicotine vapes at a pharmacy over the counter is a ok 👌I think I know who is blowing smoke up our asses!
Makes sense, although I'm now wondering, why, *if I recall correctly:*
* Ibuprofen, no questions asked
* Diclofenac as a tablet (i.e. not Voltaren *Emulgel*), requires talking to the pharmacist
* Celecoxib, requires a GP prescription
They're all NonSteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, no recreational use, why the hell are they each treated differently? Like maybe the last one has more (intense) negatives associated; but what's the point of having to wait to talk to a pharmacist for minutes asking a long list of generic questions, providing no information that couldn't just be written on the pack, and seemingly yeah it's the same deal as Ibuprofen but might help your pain from inflammation a bit more, maybe.
It's a ridiculous waste of time for both, and sure I get this is by no means a priority issue, but how'd this seemingly arbitrary disparity show up in the first place?
Diclofenac is stronger on the stomach and associated with higher risks of stomach ulcers. A good % of stomach ulcers in emergency are caused by NSAID use. Celecoxib is a once daily dose which requires a little bit more care compared to some of the other NSAIDs. Could it be S3? Sure and they’re working to downschedule it atm I believe.
Huh. So if that had happened, one could just open up a pharmacy that only stocked vapes.
And selected other items. Say, perhaps, medical cannabis.
I mean, it's a lot of hassle - still need a licenced pharmacist etc... But if other pharmacies can pick and choose what products they sell, well, if I don't want to sell asthma medicine or blood pressure pills, why should I?
So the pharmacist says hey this thing is bad for you, I say, yeah I know, I don’t care.
Seems fucking stupid.
If adults want to shorten their lives for some vice they enjoy it should be their choice. This country is insane.
it is genuinely confusing, but I always assume there is some sinister motivation (there has to be), only thing I can think is they are only doing this so they can claim the moral high ground later; but it still doesn't make much sense. There is probably some additional element like they haven't had an opportunity to vertically integrate production of vaping equipment into their business model yet. If anyone can think of an even more evil motivation, then it's probably that...
My theory on their evil motivation is to get nicotine on the PBS. There have been some interesting studies done on nicotine sprays and gum and whether they are suitable for the PBS.
I suspect it's more public health organisations that've been pushing for restrictions on vaping. It's just an extension of their long standing anti-smoking project. This time with a bit of "won't somebody *please* think of the children?!" to use on the press and politicians.
There's always been a hint of puritanism in public health discourse around addiction, a preoccupatuon with temperance over harm reduction.
I also wonder about the quality of data some public health research is based on. Tobacco tax revenue used to be a reliable indicator or the smoking rate, but since excessive tax disincentives have created a massive black market, that data would now under-represent the rate and overrepresent the effectiveness of past measure to reduce it.
>I also wonder about the quality of data some public health research is based on. Tobacco tax revenue used to be a reliable indicator or the smoking rate, but since excessive tax disincentives have created a massive black market, that data would now under-represent the rate and overrepresent the effectiveness of past measure to reduce it.
If you look at the government's own data it shows that the percentage of high school kids who use tobacco and/or vapes has remained at a consistent 7% for the best part of the last decade. The only real change has been the ratio of tobacco and vape users. With this recent change and the change in laws on importing vapes I fully expect the ratio to push back into the tobacco side of things and for the Cancer Council to point at the data and say "We told you that vapes are pushing kids to an addiction to tobacco" while completely ignoring the historical data.
I’ve been thinking the same so looked up the data recently on ABS. If look at the last 25 years, the number of people inhaling nicotine has dropped from 25% to 23% - basically all the tax, plain packaging BS the governments pushed has done sweet fuck all.
[Smoking among Australian teenagers (12–17 year old and 18–19 year old) decreased between 2013 and 2016 from 3.4% to 1.5% and from 10.8% to 4.6% respectively](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#Evidence)
That was peak plain packaging period. Since then we have had the vape market explode, and black market ciggies go crazy so data since isn't really an indicator of the impact of plain packaging
I felt exactly the way you did. Vapes worked, they don't have tar or cancer causing chemicals, they bypass a tonne of the problems of cigarettes. They help people quit. Flood the market, kill the cigarettes, anyone who is opposing it is more focussed on puritanism than harm reduction.
Then we saw teen and youth use of vape skyrocket and explode. It's obvious the tobacco industry ran with it and went hard on hooking the next generation of users.
I think having seen the outcomes so far, a more cautious approach with vapes is warranted.
In my opinion, these restrictive laws contribute to the rise in youth vaping. When you push out legitimate players, you hand the market over to the black market - and I doubt they're checking IDs.
The solution was always a regulated retail model, like cigarettes.
We already had that though.
It was a refusal from authorities to actually enforce the rules when they were broken. Even before the most recent string of legislation, the disposable vapes were illegal if they contained nicotine. Cops just didn't feel like doing controlled buys and then sending vapes off to be tested to prove they contained nicotine, so they just blanket banned all vapes, including nicotine free ones.
It would similarly be illegal for someone to sell drinks that contain alcohol whilst claiming 'oh no, these don't have alcohol!'. Cops would similarly need to buy the product and send it away to be tested.
Why is the first one a problem we can't fix other than via a crackdown and the second just... isn't much of an issue at all.
>Cops just didn't feel like doing controlled buys and then sending vapes off to be tested to prove they contained nicotine
This was a predictable outcome of the clumsy regulation of vapes that came before. Combined with the excessive taxation on cigarettes, they contributed to developing a massive black market for both. A market that organised crime is apparently invested heavily in now, complicating the issue further. It's the same cornershops, servos and tobacconists selling both and they're everywhere. It will be a war on drugs kind of problem and expense to try and police the situation away. Addiction is a factor, after all, and that's more complicated than just individual moral failure and ill-discipline.
They should have regulated vapes along the same lines as cigarettes from the start. The more harm-reduction minded advocates were arguing for that back then, but the puritan virtue of temperance won that political contest.
I honestly don't have an issue with a blanket ban on disposables. Wasteful, unregulated, no nicotine content information, coming out of Chinese factories that we can't impose safety standards on.
But these new regulations do nothing to address the disposable vape problem - dodgy corner stores and tobacconists are still going to sell them, because like you said, they were *already illegal*.
These regulations have a big effect on people who choose reusable / refillable vapes though. The knowledge of vape shop owners, accessibility to juices, supplies for rebuilding vape parts, this is what is being taken away. None of that is relevant to disposables.
It seems as though this is just going to drive more people to disposables at best, or back to cigarettes at worst.
They will also have an effect on medical marijuana patients and anyone else consuming weed.
The law has *explicitly* included dry herb vapes, which have never been and were never a problem. This was the part to me that made it clearest that this has nothing to do with harm reduction whatsoever - dry herb vapes don't even function the same way as nicotine vapes.
>It's obvious the tobacco industry ran with it and went hard on hooking the next generation of users.
The tobacco industry won though - youth nicotine usage has barely changed over the past decade with the only real difference being if they vaped or smoked tobacco. They make more from cigarettes than they do with vapes so getting vapes banned increased their profits. They did hedge their bets by also buying into the vape industry just in case countries did the smart thing and banned tobacco in favour of vapes for harm minimisation purposes...
>youth nicotine usage has barely changed over the past decade with the only real difference being if they vaped or smoked tobacco
If nicotine use barely changed but vape useage made up a large chunk of that useage, that's a huge win. That means the amount of cigarette smokers decreased without increasing the foothold of nicotine in society
The thing is though, smoking cigarettes was on the decline. Gen z and alphas just aren't taking it up. Then along comes vapes, which is seen as less destructive to your health(time will tell) and a lot more convenient. I'm a high school teacher and vaping is a massive issue at my school. It will be interesting to see how this issue is tackled by the government.
The "tobacco lobby" is the vape lobby. They're the same companies. Phillip Morris etc are literally planning to completely move away from tobacco and be fully vape companies. They are at about 35% of revenue from vapes and expect to hit 66% by 2030.
That's the problem, there were lots of non tobacco industry players with vapes and due to legislation it's back to the original tobacco industry. Importing vape juice from NZ etc... was great. The disposable market in Australia was mostly China (IGET) but even they started moving to the rechargeable "pod" type vapes.
Tobacco companies would be laughing at how they successfully continued their stronghold on nicotine in Australia due to this legislation.
Aside from Vuse, Veev and Juul, all of which were never available in Australia until the prescription/pharmacy model was introduced and allowed them to be sold exclusively from pharmacies, can you back this assertion up by naming a single vape brand owned by tobacco companies?
"Planning" is the key word here. PMI has consistently failed to do this–they invested big in smokeless tobacco to try and fight anti smoking laws and it bombed horribly, then they doubled down on that investment to try and combat Juul and fucked that up too (iQos anyone? No?). PMI, BAT, and the rest of the tobacco industry has been royally fucked by vaping (among other things) and they've failed to adapt. They aren't the same companies. Saying they'll invest in vaping by 2030 is like HMV saying they'll invest in minidisc. They won't, and they missed their chance.
While they refuse to sell many legitimate customers behind the counter medicine with their endless war on drugs ideology!
They want uncontrolled sales of vapes but don't want to sell you tube of anti fungal ointment, decent antihistamine's or effective medication while playing endless mind games. Their hypocrisy is palpable. At least this calls them out for what we have always known what they are, greedy miserable profit grabbing bastards with no regard for health outcomes.
Meanwhile the aisles are packed with fraudulent healthcare products like vitamins and body building products with unproven efficacy and no clinical testing.
Ikr, no drugs to treat your migraine effectively but here's a cold and flu tablet that does fuck all and how about some crazy marked up neurophen wo you go home without your problem solved
That's what I'm back to doing. Can'tsave any money anymore because I'ma heavy smoker and become suicidal when Itry to quit (tried champax, patches etc) only thing which works and makes me feel better is vaping and now that'sreally hard todo.
And all these laws have done is closed down the legitimate businesses who weren't selling to children and weren't supply nicotine and given that market to the pharmacies, children will continue to use the black market.
I think vapes should be sold by tobacco shops rather than pharmacies.
Having said that, I find it interesting that they won't sell vapes but will quite happily load you up with any amount of herbal and homeopathic crap.
As someone in the industry, there are SO many anti vaping statements in my emails at the moment (mainly the fuckwit guild)
Our pharmacists agreed that it was a dumb idea, and then I explained why it's a good idea and now we are considering keeping them.
The Guild & Priceline are extremely against it. No clue why, it's gonna be an absolute cash cow. If we don't do it, the bikies with continue to do it.
People are trying to "stop" vaping, when in reality it was left too late so the best idea is to try and regulate them, or allow us to intervene when they try.
Edit: just received comms from the Guild telling us how stocking vapes will lead to extortion, firebombing and threats.
The only people in pharmacy who support the guild also own a pharmacy
We also aren't legally allowed to talk to the guild. Wanted to chat about it and they wouldn't talk because I'm not an owner.
They dictated our (the worker) policies, education, etc, but won't talk to us. Very telling.
Also when the guild was like "S4 vapes are good"... They only exclusively give pharmacies Veev, owned by none other than Phillip Morris....
Phillip Morris just spent an absolute bag getting S4 vapes ready.... Only for the government to downgrade them to S3, meaning every single pharmacy will have to destroy their current stock holdings. That's why the guild doesn't support it, because $$$$
Just received comms from the Guild telling us how stocking vapes will lead to extortion, firebombing and threats.
Unfortunately most pharmacy owners will eat this shit up lol
The TGA requirements are extremely strict on our end, so the label saying "Prescription Only" can't be shown, even if it's been downgraded.
It's extremely rare for a product to be down scheduled, so I don't think they really bothered to think of a better way.
Lots of pharmacy policies and audits from the government are extremely outdated
You're dreaming if pharmacies will destroy the stock based on the down scheduling. This has happened in the past with plenty of drugs (e.g. melatonin, triptans etc) and as long as you label over the "Prescription Only" and add the correct directions for an S3 preparation, you can sell it.
You could even just sell it in plain packaging with your own pharmacy label and directions on it plus batch and expiry numbers, there is nothing stating it has to be in the manufacturer packaging.
I was seriously considering vaping to get off cigarettes until I seen the government expect people to see a doctor and get a prescription. What a fucking joke. Still smoking, although less.
Only after October though. So in the meantime you still need a script.
There are sites out there that offer prescriptions (https://tabuu.com.au is/was doing it for free).
> seriously considering
> until I seen the government expect people to see a doctor and get a prescription
So not seriously at all then, as even if you want to claim a GP charge it would end up being made back by a reduction in smoking.
Perhaps you don't understand the commitment and circumstances. It's not something you walk in and out of. But don't let me stop the judgements in your Reddit brain.
Weren't they complaining about losing money from the longer scripts?
This is literally the perfect opportunity to make up that lost revenue (and then some)
Pharmacy Guild are strongly pro-LNP, maybe they oppose everything the current government does. Their argument that longer scripts would cause medication shortages makes no sense, people are still using the same about of medication, they just don't need to go to the pharmacy as often to impulsively buy supplements and beauty products while they are waiting.
From a supply chain perspective they are correct. It is a lot easier to consistently fulfil regular smaller demand, than less frequent large demand.
In this case it should be relatively predictable so it's not to bad, but it is more likely to result in a pharmacy not having enough stock to fulfil an order.
I don't believe that this was their actual issue with the policy, they definitely just want customers in store more often.
>From a supply chain perspective they are correct. It is a lot easier to consistently fulfil regular smaller demand, than less frequent large demand.
From a predicting supply chain demand perspective yes.
On the other hand, meds come in extremely small boxes, can be transported quickly, and most of the labour is in the packaging, preparation, printing labels, red tape etc. Logistically, there is not much difference in size between a pill box for 1 month vs pill box for 2 months, which allows you to store more product with less store space.
In short, 2 month supplies are much more cost efficient, time efficient, labour efficient. They're just not profit efficient and not feet in stores efficient.
The rate of use is still the same though. A pharmaceutical company might make 300,000 pills in a batch every month. 10,000 people fulfilling scripts every month vs 2 months doesn't make a difference to the supply.
Previously 10k people bought 30 pills every month. Now 5k people buy 60pills every month. It's the same rate of production and delivery.
The issue isn't going to be on the supplier supply side but the stores. If the amount purchased at each time goes up, and the frequency of sale goes down, to ensure stores have stock on hand they would need to increase the baseline amount of stock held.
There are risks, and costs associated with holding increased stock in store in particular.
That said, it's a bullshit argument they are hiding behind because they don't want to lose easy money.
I believe the title misses a key point. The Pharmacists just want the vape to be obtainable with a prescription.
So it's about increasing their income through dispensing fees.
This kind of lobbying only makes sense if they have any chance of getting the law changed.
Perhaps this is more "get rid of Albanese at any cost" than "make us more money".
It isn't, their complaints make perfect sense. They are required to talk to the customer (patient?) and they take the vape on their advice. They don't believe their current insurances will cover them if that person develops a health issue from vaping after doing so on advice of a pharmacist.
The other issue is without a prescription their is no tracking so people can go from chemist to chemist buying as many as they want with zero oversight.
If it's a prescription then it's a doctors recommendation and it's covered by their insurance.
But I thought pharmacies were keen on prescribing for UTIs and whatever other health conditions, surely that would be the same insurance situation with it being a pharmacist's recommendation.
> Sell vapes through tobacconists, regulated and taxed, just like other tobacco products
I'm guessing tobacconists sell a lot of stuff under the counter, so the tax take won't be as much as forecast.
No different from any other business that takes cashies. Put money into the ATO to actually investigate these businesses instead of just banning shit cause too hard.
PMI and BAT secured what was pretty much an exclusive contract to sell only thru chemists in a deal with the health minister and the pharmacy guild. PMI and BAT both campaigned for the illegalisation/medicalisation of it so that they could create a monopoly to enrich the guild, the former health minister, the current, liber pharm and themselves.
Tobacco sales have been falling in Australia for a very long time, and as Big Tobacco had 0% vape presence prior to Jan 1, they had no real room to get into the competition to try to claw back their lost revenue. So they worked with the gov and the health cabinet to illegalise their competition.
This legislation also killed job creation in Australia by banning the local manufacture of nicotine and flavour.
Australia wasn't just going to legalise them (they'd been trying to stomp them out since before big tobacco got involved), and even if they did they were dwarfed by non-big tobacco competition.
I honestly have no issue with the flavourings. The government vapes can only be tobacco/menthol flavoured which is a joke. The tobacco type flavouring is more like caramel and even as an ex smoker it was shit in comparison to cigarettes. Currently I vape double apple which tastes like apple shisha.
It's like the government banning any alcohol that tastes good and says you can only drink industrial ethanol.
Then why do we let them sell tobacco? My argument is that vapes should be regulated and sold in the same way we sell other nicotine products. Requiring a prescription and selling them through pharmacies will do nothing but create a thriving black market with less safe products
It's political pandering, not good policy. This is right up there with 'warning systems' for drugs instead of decriminalisation and drug testing facilities
Nothing to do with the vape turf wars. Organised crime is smart enough to not target pharmacies as that's how the police crack down on them. If that was going to happen, they would already be syphoning off more valuable stuff like opioids with fake scripts/damaged stock etc...
No one wants to buy their mostly big tobacco vapes in crappy mint and tobacco flavours anyway.
I'm supporting the black market until we have a sensible regulated retail model for nicotine vapes.
Be aware of the politics of the Australian Pharmacy Guild.
Trent Twomey - [President and not a real professor.](https://web.archive.org/web/20230513102818/https://www.afr.com/rear-window/pharmacy-guild-s-president-not-quite-a-full-professor-20210516-p57scn)
Gerard Benedet - The founder of the ultraright wing group Advance Australia.
The doctors don't like the Pharmacy Guild - [AusDoc investigation: The Pharmacy Guild, its lobbyists and its money](https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/ausdoc-investigation-pharmacy-guild-its-lobbyists-and-its-money/)
"Pharmacists are healthcare professionals and community pharmacies do not want to supply this potentially harmful, highly addictive product without a prescription"
Yet every pharmacy and supermarket in Aus has sold nicotine gum, sprays, inhalants and patches without hesitation for years so they don't actually mind selling nicotine products as long as the mark up is high enough and there's no pharmacist consultation required.
I’ve seen this pop up quite a lot in this thread and never understood it.
Those products have an actual place in smoking cessation therapy, and have proven to be quite effective. They’re subsidised on the PBS as a prescription item.
Vapes are just a replacement for cigarettes, and this is just a poorly masked attempt at restricting supply from the tobacco lobbyists.
The Nicorette type products I referenced aren't on the PBS, aren't subsidised and aren't via prescription. Prescriptions currently exist for vaping as a smoking cessation tool.
Nicotinell patches are available on the PBS. The other products (inhalations, gums) are also available as a prescription item though they’re not subsidised.
And vaping for smoking cessation is a largely new concept and does not have much evidence base at the current time. They also require special approval, very similar to medical cannabis.
They are also available in hospitals and are on, for example, the Queensland List of Approved Medicines. To get on this list it is a bit like being funded on the PBS - you need to prove it is effective and cost efficient.
Yes some products are prescribed. That doesn't have anything to do with my original comment that non prescribed nicotine products are sold alongside and under the same circumstances as deodorant and lollies and anusol and all the other stuff chemists sell.
Vaping as a smoking cessation tool does have sufficient evidence base for doctors to be prescribing it and for the govt to have set up regulatory processes to approve trained doctors.
I’ve seen about 2 prescriptions for nicotine vapes since they’ve been allowed to prescribe it (I think since three years ago? - don’t quote me on this) so it’s definitely not as prevalent as stuff like medical cannabis.
My issue is you lump those nicotine products as if they have no therapeutic benefit and pharmacies only stock them to make profit. That is not actually the case, and I was trying to fix your misconception.
Pharmacists don’t want to be selling vapes because it’s not therapeutic and de-values the profession as a whole.
Yes, they stock perfumes and all that dumb shit but that’s the retail section. The proposed legislation is making it behind the counter i.e. a pharmacy medicine, on the same level as thrush treatment, sleeping tablets, asthma inhalers and migraine medicines. It’s not something we want to be associated with, or be a subset of people we want to deal with in the first place.
" My issue is you lump those nicotine products as if they have no therapeutic benefit" where the heck did I say or imply that? Don't put words in my mouth and say I have misconceptions.
"The proposed legislation is making it behind the counter" yes, where it already has been for years.
"Not...a subset of people we want to deal with" Wow, there it is. That attitude really has no place at all in medical environments. It's actually horrible to think anyone with a medical condition would have to deal with this ignorance to get their prescribed medicine. Awful.
It has not been behind the counter for years. It’s never been behind the counter at all; you could only get them at tobacconists or as an overpriced prescription item.
This shows you are clearly lacking information about the industry and the situation.
And when I say I don’t want to deal with it, I meant I don’t want to deal with high schoolers asking for vapes and me having to argue with them as to why I’m refusing supply. I have better uses of my time.
There may be a point as to where vapes will be treated as a proper therapeutic product, however that’s a long way away, and this recently legislation by the government certainly won’t help.
Nicotine on its own isn’t harmful (aside from the chemical effect on developing brains). It’s the delivery mechanism via inhalation that would be a cause for concern.
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.4103/0971-5851.151771
Not true at all, plenty of meta analysis' have found that even on its own nicotine poses direct threats to health.
And they already sell "inhalater" nicotine. Nicotine is harmful even to grown adults it's highly addictive so ideally no one would be having it at all but a properly regulated system is the next best option
The nicotine isn't the harmful part in cigarettes. It's the addictive part. Selling nicotine products to satisfy that craving and to then help wean off nicotine completely is absolutely appropriate and avoid the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes.
There are lots of reports of harm from vaping including things like bronchiolitis obliterans (popcorn lung).
Nicotine is definitely harmful. It fucks up your vascular system. But yes I agree nicotine products are an important tool because smoking is way worse.
> There are lots of reports of harm from vaping including things like bronchiolitis obliterans (popcorn lung).
Complete myth. The only cases of popcorn lung come from workers in a popcorn factory where they were breathing in diacetyl all day. Not one single case of popcorn lung has ever been attributed to vaping. And the vast majority of vape juice manufacturers removed diacetyl from all juices as a precaution and also because most vapers did not like the sweet vomit taste of diacetyl anyway.
Yet they have astronomically raised the prices on smoking cessation products to capitalize on all the people addicted to nicotine vapes that will come flooding to their stores for them since the vape ban started.
Costs me more now to keep off smoking than to actually smoke (legal) cigarettes. I only stopped because i couldnt afford it anymore, and as a result its now cheaper to actually smoke than quit. fuck them and their BS. This is about money and nothing else. It always is.
>In short: Australia's major pharmacy chains have rejected the vaping sales ban passed by parliament on Thursday.
They have signalled to franchisees that vaping products should not be sold without prescription.
>
>What's next? The sales ban will be in force from Monday, making chemists the only legal suppliers
It's a real shame that all the legitimate stores that were following every law and regulation and would have happily followed every future law and regulation are the biggest ones affected by this meanwhile all the dodgy stores selling to children will continue as usual.
I went into a pharmacy on Wednesday and I had to wade through 4 x 4 aisles of inane shit and useless tchotchkes before I got to the medicine section, and even then I had to ask the staff where to find my embarrassing product because the whole store was a shitshow. I hate these places, fuck big pharma.
Very few vapers are even going to buy the pharmacy vapes as they'll be restricted to mint, menthol or tobacco flavour which are flavours nobody wants to vape, they'll also be prohibitively expense and crappy pod systems.
What Mark Buttplug seems not to realise is a lot of vapers aren't using them as a cessation tool, they simply enjoy vaping and have no intention of quitting.
The end result will be the black market will grow even bigger purely because of supply and demand, the ban will be an absolute failure and disposables will still be openly sold as well as illicit cigarettes. Most smokers don't care if the government is missing out on tax revenue from their habit, why spend $46 for a pack of 20 government sanctioned heavily taxed smokes when you get an under the counter pack of 20 for less than $20.
I’m a pharmacist that it’s only frustrating because at least, in my position, I want to provide care that is evidence based and associated harms are put into review before they are supplied. Last time I checked, there is no significant positive evidence for vapes as a nicotine replacement therapy or smoking cessation aid, but plenty of emerging evidence to indicate the harms from the use of vapes, great or small. From what I’ve read, it’s seems to put pharmacists like myself at odds with our professional guidelines and what they want us to do regardless of best practice and just sell these things as a tobacconist once we establish there is a therapeutic need. That’s where I can’t make sense of supplying something that I can’t justify giving.
In the town I live and work in, the shops that stock and sell cigarettes/vapes have had multiple break ins/ram raids and had their complete stock taken or made an attempt to, and leave massive damage behind to a local business and move on to the next town over.
I understand there are perceptions on our profession, and I agree done of us have made absolute twits of ourselves, or upsell to meet KPIs. But there is some of us out here who are at least trying their best to give you the best. Just today I was able to provide clear, evidence-based advice for smoking cessation, easy referral points, and supplied a suitable product for someone, when they came in for something completely unrelated but asked for some help in quitting once I asked a few questions to help.
For the people blaming the Guild (as evil as they are). CW aren’t members and are usually on bad terms with Guild. I don’t think it’s nefarious. Maybe pharmacies just don’t want to sell tobacco products ?
I remember the Terry White chemists protesting the longer script legislation because it would destroy their business of hocking shit nobody needs when pensioners can renew their script every 8 weeks instead of 4, saving a few dollars of script fees. Now they're throwing away endless vape sales foot traffic?
Came here to say this. So they have no problem pushing perfumes, cosmetics, or even scientifically disproven supplements at high inflated prices, and now they simply don’t want to sell something with massive markups? WTF seriously?
Community pharmacy is in really bad shape currently and getting worse and the government couldn’t care less. They keep letting the corrupt corporations like guild screw everyone over, especially CWH which are undercutting other stores and driving them out of business. Pretty shocking how things are going. And making pharmacies less vapes is an incredible insult to the industry lmao, an absolute joke. Not to mention how they let pharmacies sells lotto tickets…
Being a newsagency is more of a workaround rather than letting any pharmacies do it though, just fyi
Yeah it’s strange isn’t it, doesn’t make sense with their recent actions, you would think a money grubbing retailer would love to be the exclusive supplier of an addictive product?
Not just that An addictive product with such high markups/profit margins and nearly ZERO work required other than checking the person is 18 or older. No record keeping needed, no script dispensing, nothing. Just stock, sell, profit, repeat.
Very odd, I’m surprised by the reaction. The government doesn’t want it, the greens forced them. So it’s not like they going to get a subsidy. So ether they have been told not to by the government in liew of something better or they actually think it will hurt their brand identity haha, after the 60 day dispensing rubbish not likely. The situation has me perplexed.
Pharmacy: sells quackery-based, scientifically-disproven homeopathy treatments and other shit, as well as lollies, soft drinks, cosmetics, toiletries, and perfumes. Also pharmacy: Want us to sell fucking vapes? Deus Meus! What about our rEPuTaaaYsHunN?
Yeah it doesn’t make any sense.
Right?!?! That was EXACTLY what I thought. They are being HANDED a golden calf and bitching about it. The Pharmacy Guild is a fucking crock.
They are pretending the golden calf is a liability and just a public service in the hopes of attracting a subsidy.
Ding ding ding!
Nah the subsidy angle doesn’t make sense, remember the original policy/legislation was to outright ban. However the greens forced them to allow pharmacies. So the government has no interest in forcing pharmacies, so why would they want to subsidies. The whole thing has me perplexed, it doesn’t make sense. Retailer to exclusive rights to highly addictive product, and what’s more forced into it. I’m surprised the party line, wasn’t we don’t want to sell capes but we will for the good of the Australia people, but no outright saying we won’t. Personal I think prohibition never works, never has and never will. Drugs, alcohol, Tobacco, at best it creates a black market at worse it creates massive gang land wars. Duttons policy alternative is crazy, standard law and order response that never works.
They don't want to have a conversation about quitting every time they sell a vape. It's annoying
Boomers HATE this vaping shit. They’d turn down a revenue stream rather risk pissing off the boomers!
Yeah, pretty rich coming from the generation that got their own kids addicted by smoking in homes and cars 🙃
Maybe they don’t want school kids trying to buy vapes in the pharmacy
School kids will go the exact same illegal sources they've been going to for 2+ years.
Then they can check ID and refuse service. Sounds pretty simple to me.
I suspect that they won't be very profitable to sell / stock at all... For those who are using the corner shop disposables nothing has changed, they will still be cheaper than the pharmacy option, and easier to find if the article is accurate. For those who are using the mod + tank approach, going by the subreddit, most people seem to have a lifetime's supply of nicotine sitting in the freezer, and enough juice and hardware to last them for years, and going from spending like $5 a week to however much the pharmacy model is won't be an attractive option at all.
I don’t think you understand the legislation. Anything that looks like a vape, is used in a vape, is put in a vape, cannot be sold by a corner store. Ironically, a humidifying CPAP machine is illegal now, as is any vapour juice that you would put it in, such as water. Thankfully the minister has the power to deem any product to be legal or illegal. I’m glad they left a glaring big loop hole in the legislation. I know exactly what the next big thing is going to be.
The corner store vapes have been illegal since they were first sold, that's my point.
Since 2023. Nicotine vapes were always illegal but not strictly inforced, no specific legislation preventing importation. Vapes in general were legal until 2023, not until 2024 that even non-nicotine vapes became illegal.
But you can still get them easily today. What exactly do you think is going to change on that front?
Selling or importing any part of a vape device or liquid is now a specifically called out criminal offence with non-trivial fines and prison time? Penalties for businesses are 10x that for personal use, you can’t even advertise that you sell anything related to vapes. Might be a slight deterrent.
Ah, so the grey market is likely going to dry up pretty quickly now. What will chemists be able to sell, both the throw aways and the juice by itself?
Don’t know where you are but the grey market has been drying up for 6 months since they announced their plan. I’ve got no horse in this race but one of the guys at work managed to kick smoking after 20+ years thanks to vapes. He’s on nicotine free ones now, but ironically they are the ones you won’t be able to buy anymore. Crazy corrupt world we live in.
Oh my! That is certainly going to stop them! Just like it's stopped the millions of illegally imported cigarettes coming into Australia! Golly gosh! Silly me! Prohibition really is the way forward here guys!
>a humidifying CPAP machine is illegal now, as is any vapour juice that you would put it in, such as water oh fuck! This is a game changer! I can vape in my sleep now
They sell vapes at pharmacists already, but you need a prescription. The proposed changes will remove this and let anyone buy one. The pharmacy guild is just having a big whinge because they'll lose out on the prescription revenue.
>The pharmacy guild is just having a big whinge because they'll lose out on the prescription revenue. According to the article the pharmacy guild was actually trying to get vapes to be a schedule 2 drug rather than the schedule 3 drug that it is now. The difference is that the pharmacist has to have a talk with the buyer before buying a schedule 3 drug over a schedule 2 drug which is just sold over the counter.
Fair enough, pharmacists don't study at uni for years to spend their whole day reminding people that smoking is bad.
More like turning a pharmacy into a smoke shop. Apparently vape shops selling nicotine-free vapes over the counter is bad, but selling nicotine vapes at a pharmacy over the counter is a ok 👌I think I know who is blowing smoke up our asses!
Makes sense, although I'm now wondering, why, *if I recall correctly:* * Ibuprofen, no questions asked * Diclofenac as a tablet (i.e. not Voltaren *Emulgel*), requires talking to the pharmacist * Celecoxib, requires a GP prescription They're all NonSteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs, no recreational use, why the hell are they each treated differently? Like maybe the last one has more (intense) negatives associated; but what's the point of having to wait to talk to a pharmacist for minutes asking a long list of generic questions, providing no information that couldn't just be written on the pack, and seemingly yeah it's the same deal as Ibuprofen but might help your pain from inflammation a bit more, maybe. It's a ridiculous waste of time for both, and sure I get this is by no means a priority issue, but how'd this seemingly arbitrary disparity show up in the first place?
There's a lot of this type of nonsense sadly.
Diclofenac is stronger on the stomach and associated with higher risks of stomach ulcers. A good % of stomach ulcers in emergency are caused by NSAID use. Celecoxib is a once daily dose which requires a little bit more care compared to some of the other NSAIDs. Could it be S3? Sure and they’re working to downschedule it atm I believe.
Huh. So if that had happened, one could just open up a pharmacy that only stocked vapes. And selected other items. Say, perhaps, medical cannabis. I mean, it's a lot of hassle - still need a licenced pharmacist etc... But if other pharmacies can pick and choose what products they sell, well, if I don't want to sell asthma medicine or blood pressure pills, why should I?
So the pharmacist says hey this thing is bad for you, I say, yeah I know, I don’t care. Seems fucking stupid. If adults want to shorten their lives for some vice they enjoy it should be their choice. This country is insane.
Haha yea welcome to chemist vapehouse just like chemist warehouse only better *wink wink
Why do they need to talk to anyone at all? I've already talked to my Dr about it and decided on the course of action just fill out the script please.
Finally, some facts. This seems a reasonable request to me.
it is genuinely confusing, but I always assume there is some sinister motivation (there has to be), only thing I can think is they are only doing this so they can claim the moral high ground later; but it still doesn't make much sense. There is probably some additional element like they haven't had an opportunity to vertically integrate production of vaping equipment into their business model yet. If anyone can think of an even more evil motivation, then it's probably that...
My theory on their evil motivation is to get nicotine on the PBS. There have been some interesting studies done on nicotine sprays and gum and whether they are suitable for the PBS.
> Now they're throwing away endless vape sales foot traffic? I assume this is performative protesting
That confuses me too. They’ll be rolling in it, why whinge.
How ironically hilarious that it is easier to buy a packet of cigarettes than to vape lol.
Not really, it’s intentional. Keeps the tobacco lobby happy
I suspect it's more public health organisations that've been pushing for restrictions on vaping. It's just an extension of their long standing anti-smoking project. This time with a bit of "won't somebody *please* think of the children?!" to use on the press and politicians. There's always been a hint of puritanism in public health discourse around addiction, a preoccupatuon with temperance over harm reduction. I also wonder about the quality of data some public health research is based on. Tobacco tax revenue used to be a reliable indicator or the smoking rate, but since excessive tax disincentives have created a massive black market, that data would now under-represent the rate and overrepresent the effectiveness of past measure to reduce it.
It's not kids who are buying cigarettes on the black market.
>I also wonder about the quality of data some public health research is based on. Tobacco tax revenue used to be a reliable indicator or the smoking rate, but since excessive tax disincentives have created a massive black market, that data would now under-represent the rate and overrepresent the effectiveness of past measure to reduce it. If you look at the government's own data it shows that the percentage of high school kids who use tobacco and/or vapes has remained at a consistent 7% for the best part of the last decade. The only real change has been the ratio of tobacco and vape users. With this recent change and the change in laws on importing vapes I fully expect the ratio to push back into the tobacco side of things and for the Cancer Council to point at the data and say "We told you that vapes are pushing kids to an addiction to tobacco" while completely ignoring the historical data.
I’ve been thinking the same so looked up the data recently on ABS. If look at the last 25 years, the number of people inhaling nicotine has dropped from 25% to 23% - basically all the tax, plain packaging BS the governments pushed has done sweet fuck all.
[Smoking among Australian teenagers (12–17 year old and 18–19 year old) decreased between 2013 and 2016 from 3.4% to 1.5% and from 10.8% to 4.6% respectively](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_tobacco_packaging#Evidence) That was peak plain packaging period. Since then we have had the vape market explode, and black market ciggies go crazy so data since isn't really an indicator of the impact of plain packaging
I felt exactly the way you did. Vapes worked, they don't have tar or cancer causing chemicals, they bypass a tonne of the problems of cigarettes. They help people quit. Flood the market, kill the cigarettes, anyone who is opposing it is more focussed on puritanism than harm reduction. Then we saw teen and youth use of vape skyrocket and explode. It's obvious the tobacco industry ran with it and went hard on hooking the next generation of users. I think having seen the outcomes so far, a more cautious approach with vapes is warranted.
In my opinion, these restrictive laws contribute to the rise in youth vaping. When you push out legitimate players, you hand the market over to the black market - and I doubt they're checking IDs. The solution was always a regulated retail model, like cigarettes.
We already had that though. It was a refusal from authorities to actually enforce the rules when they were broken. Even before the most recent string of legislation, the disposable vapes were illegal if they contained nicotine. Cops just didn't feel like doing controlled buys and then sending vapes off to be tested to prove they contained nicotine, so they just blanket banned all vapes, including nicotine free ones. It would similarly be illegal for someone to sell drinks that contain alcohol whilst claiming 'oh no, these don't have alcohol!'. Cops would similarly need to buy the product and send it away to be tested. Why is the first one a problem we can't fix other than via a crackdown and the second just... isn't much of an issue at all.
>Cops just didn't feel like doing controlled buys and then sending vapes off to be tested to prove they contained nicotine This was a predictable outcome of the clumsy regulation of vapes that came before. Combined with the excessive taxation on cigarettes, they contributed to developing a massive black market for both. A market that organised crime is apparently invested heavily in now, complicating the issue further. It's the same cornershops, servos and tobacconists selling both and they're everywhere. It will be a war on drugs kind of problem and expense to try and police the situation away. Addiction is a factor, after all, and that's more complicated than just individual moral failure and ill-discipline. They should have regulated vapes along the same lines as cigarettes from the start. The more harm-reduction minded advocates were arguing for that back then, but the puritan virtue of temperance won that political contest.
I honestly don't have an issue with a blanket ban on disposables. Wasteful, unregulated, no nicotine content information, coming out of Chinese factories that we can't impose safety standards on. But these new regulations do nothing to address the disposable vape problem - dodgy corner stores and tobacconists are still going to sell them, because like you said, they were *already illegal*. These regulations have a big effect on people who choose reusable / refillable vapes though. The knowledge of vape shop owners, accessibility to juices, supplies for rebuilding vape parts, this is what is being taken away. None of that is relevant to disposables. It seems as though this is just going to drive more people to disposables at best, or back to cigarettes at worst.
They will also have an effect on medical marijuana patients and anyone else consuming weed. The law has *explicitly* included dry herb vapes, which have never been and were never a problem. This was the part to me that made it clearest that this has nothing to do with harm reduction whatsoever - dry herb vapes don't even function the same way as nicotine vapes.
>It's obvious the tobacco industry ran with it and went hard on hooking the next generation of users. The tobacco industry won though - youth nicotine usage has barely changed over the past decade with the only real difference being if they vaped or smoked tobacco. They make more from cigarettes than they do with vapes so getting vapes banned increased their profits. They did hedge their bets by also buying into the vape industry just in case countries did the smart thing and banned tobacco in favour of vapes for harm minimisation purposes...
>youth nicotine usage has barely changed over the past decade with the only real difference being if they vaped or smoked tobacco If nicotine use barely changed but vape useage made up a large chunk of that useage, that's a huge win. That means the amount of cigarette smokers decreased without increasing the foothold of nicotine in society
So kids are addicted to vapes rather than cigarettes. Forgive me if I'm not jumping for joy at that one.
The thing is though, smoking cigarettes was on the decline. Gen z and alphas just aren't taking it up. Then along comes vapes, which is seen as less destructive to your health(time will tell) and a lot more convenient. I'm a high school teacher and vaping is a massive issue at my school. It will be interesting to see how this issue is tackled by the government.
The "tobacco lobby" is the vape lobby. They're the same companies. Phillip Morris etc are literally planning to completely move away from tobacco and be fully vape companies. They are at about 35% of revenue from vapes and expect to hit 66% by 2030.
That's the problem, there were lots of non tobacco industry players with vapes and due to legislation it's back to the original tobacco industry. Importing vape juice from NZ etc... was great. The disposable market in Australia was mostly China (IGET) but even they started moving to the rechargeable "pod" type vapes. Tobacco companies would be laughing at how they successfully continued their stronghold on nicotine in Australia due to this legislation.
Aside from Vuse, Veev and Juul, all of which were never available in Australia until the prescription/pharmacy model was introduced and allowed them to be sold exclusively from pharmacies, can you back this assertion up by naming a single vape brand owned by tobacco companies?
"Planning" is the key word here. PMI has consistently failed to do this–they invested big in smokeless tobacco to try and fight anti smoking laws and it bombed horribly, then they doubled down on that investment to try and combat Juul and fucked that up too (iQos anyone? No?). PMI, BAT, and the rest of the tobacco industry has been royally fucked by vaping (among other things) and they've failed to adapt. They aren't the same companies. Saying they'll invest in vaping by 2030 is like HMV saying they'll invest in minidisc. They won't, and they missed their chance.
Mainly the pharmaceutical guild actually after the script extension fiasco. Those guys are crooks.
While they refuse to sell many legitimate customers behind the counter medicine with their endless war on drugs ideology! They want uncontrolled sales of vapes but don't want to sell you tube of anti fungal ointment, decent antihistamine's or effective medication while playing endless mind games. Their hypocrisy is palpable. At least this calls them out for what we have always known what they are, greedy miserable profit grabbing bastards with no regard for health outcomes. Meanwhile the aisles are packed with fraudulent healthcare products like vitamins and body building products with unproven efficacy and no clinical testing.
The answer to all ailments is now Ibuprofen. It doesn't make the ailment go away, but at least it (temporarily) makes the patient go away.
Ikr, no drugs to treat your migraine effectively but here's a cold and flu tablet that does fuck all and how about some crazy marked up neurophen wo you go home without your problem solved
what?
That's what I'm back to doing. Can'tsave any money anymore because I'ma heavy smoker and become suicidal when Itry to quit (tried champax, patches etc) only thing which works and makes me feel better is vaping and now that'sreally hard todo.
I know a guy who got out of a weapons company for a year while he was on Champax then rejoined when he was off smoking and no longer feeling suicidal.
About a year ago I used to joke about my cannabis being legal but nicotine in my vape not.
It's only ironic if you have a very surface level understanding of the differences.
Is it? A heap of kids who have never smoked and would never have smoked are now vaping.
And all these laws have done is closed down the legitimate businesses who weren't selling to children and weren't supply nicotine and given that market to the pharmacies, children will continue to use the black market.
I think vapes should be sold by tobacco shops rather than pharmacies. Having said that, I find it interesting that they won't sell vapes but will quite happily load you up with any amount of herbal and homeopathic crap.
Don't forget the shitty quitting options like Nicabate gum/inhalers etc... that they push.
At least most of that crap does nothing to you - good or bad. Vapes are not good for you.
What is happening? Did anyone consult anyone? I don't understand why we can't just have NZ's system, it's apples for apples and works.
That just makes too much sense. Where's the outrage?
As someone in the industry, there are SO many anti vaping statements in my emails at the moment (mainly the fuckwit guild) Our pharmacists agreed that it was a dumb idea, and then I explained why it's a good idea and now we are considering keeping them. The Guild & Priceline are extremely against it. No clue why, it's gonna be an absolute cash cow. If we don't do it, the bikies with continue to do it. People are trying to "stop" vaping, when in reality it was left too late so the best idea is to try and regulate them, or allow us to intervene when they try. Edit: just received comms from the Guild telling us how stocking vapes will lead to extortion, firebombing and threats.
Isn't because blue team vs red team. Pharmacy guild is big blue team
The only people in pharmacy who support the guild also own a pharmacy We also aren't legally allowed to talk to the guild. Wanted to chat about it and they wouldn't talk because I'm not an owner. They dictated our (the worker) policies, education, etc, but won't talk to us. Very telling. Also when the guild was like "S4 vapes are good"... They only exclusively give pharmacies Veev, owned by none other than Phillip Morris.... Phillip Morris just spent an absolute bag getting S4 vapes ready.... Only for the government to downgrade them to S3, meaning every single pharmacy will have to destroy their current stock holdings. That's why the guild doesn't support it, because $$$$
The interests of the guild do not align with that of healthcare or society
Just received comms from the Guild telling us how stocking vapes will lead to extortion, firebombing and threats. Unfortunately most pharmacy owners will eat this shit up lol
Out of interest, do you know why there isn’t a mechanism to sell previously S4 medications that have been downgraded to S3 with an amended label?
The TGA requirements are extremely strict on our end, so the label saying "Prescription Only" can't be shown, even if it's been downgraded. It's extremely rare for a product to be down scheduled, so I don't think they really bothered to think of a better way. Lots of pharmacy policies and audits from the government are extremely outdated
You're dreaming if pharmacies will destroy the stock based on the down scheduling. This has happened in the past with plenty of drugs (e.g. melatonin, triptans etc) and as long as you label over the "Prescription Only" and add the correct directions for an S3 preparation, you can sell it. You could even just sell it in plain packaging with your own pharmacy label and directions on it plus batch and expiry numbers, there is nothing stating it has to be in the manufacturer packaging.
I was seriously considering vaping to get off cigarettes until I seen the government expect people to see a doctor and get a prescription. What a fucking joke. Still smoking, although less.
Well luckily you don't need a script anymore.
Yeah, luckily you don't need a script, unless of course you're a 14 year old school girl who acts like a tradie online and we hadn't pick that up...
Thank the Greens for getting the prescription requirement ditched.
Only after October though. So in the meantime you still need a script. There are sites out there that offer prescriptions (https://tabuu.com.au is/was doing it for free).
> seriously considering > until I seen the government expect people to see a doctor and get a prescription So not seriously at all then, as even if you want to claim a GP charge it would end up being made back by a reduction in smoking.
Perhaps you don't understand the commitment and circumstances. It's not something you walk in and out of. But don't let me stop the judgements in your Reddit brain.
If the pharmacy guild would pass up a monopoly to sell nicotine to addicts, then you know it must be a truly awful piece of legislation.
Weren't they complaining about losing money from the longer scripts? This is literally the perfect opportunity to make up that lost revenue (and then some)
Pharmacy Guild are strongly pro-LNP, maybe they oppose everything the current government does. Their argument that longer scripts would cause medication shortages makes no sense, people are still using the same about of medication, they just don't need to go to the pharmacy as often to impulsively buy supplements and beauty products while they are waiting.
From a supply chain perspective they are correct. It is a lot easier to consistently fulfil regular smaller demand, than less frequent large demand. In this case it should be relatively predictable so it's not to bad, but it is more likely to result in a pharmacy not having enough stock to fulfil an order. I don't believe that this was their actual issue with the policy, they definitely just want customers in store more often.
>From a supply chain perspective they are correct. It is a lot easier to consistently fulfil regular smaller demand, than less frequent large demand. From a predicting supply chain demand perspective yes. On the other hand, meds come in extremely small boxes, can be transported quickly, and most of the labour is in the packaging, preparation, printing labels, red tape etc. Logistically, there is not much difference in size between a pill box for 1 month vs pill box for 2 months, which allows you to store more product with less store space. In short, 2 month supplies are much more cost efficient, time efficient, labour efficient. They're just not profit efficient and not feet in stores efficient.
The rate of use is still the same though. A pharmaceutical company might make 300,000 pills in a batch every month. 10,000 people fulfilling scripts every month vs 2 months doesn't make a difference to the supply. Previously 10k people bought 30 pills every month. Now 5k people buy 60pills every month. It's the same rate of production and delivery.
The issue isn't going to be on the supplier supply side but the stores. If the amount purchased at each time goes up, and the frequency of sale goes down, to ensure stores have stock on hand they would need to increase the baseline amount of stock held. There are risks, and costs associated with holding increased stock in store in particular. That said, it's a bullshit argument they are hiding behind because they don't want to lose easy money.
I believe the title misses a key point. The Pharmacists just want the vape to be obtainable with a prescription. So it's about increasing their income through dispensing fees.
This kind of lobbying only makes sense if they have any chance of getting the law changed. Perhaps this is more "get rid of Albanese at any cost" than "make us more money".
Vaping products are always private. There is no dispensing fee associated with private prescriptions
It isn't, their complaints make perfect sense. They are required to talk to the customer (patient?) and they take the vape on their advice. They don't believe their current insurances will cover them if that person develops a health issue from vaping after doing so on advice of a pharmacist. The other issue is without a prescription their is no tracking so people can go from chemist to chemist buying as many as they want with zero oversight. If it's a prescription then it's a doctors recommendation and it's covered by their insurance.
But I thought pharmacies were keen on prescribing for UTIs and whatever other health conditions, surely that would be the same insurance situation with it being a pharmacist's recommendation.
An antibiotic for a UTI is theraputically proven to treat it. A vape is therputically linked to giving you cancer. Slight difference.
What a cluster fuck of a policy. Sell vapes through tobacconists, regulated and taxed, just like other tobacco products
> Sell vapes through tobacconists, regulated and taxed, just like other tobacco products I'm guessing tobacconists sell a lot of stuff under the counter, so the tax take won't be as much as forecast.
No different from any other business that takes cashies. Put money into the ATO to actually investigate these businesses instead of just banning shit cause too hard.
Well yes, quite. Pharmacists don't take cashies.
Point is to investigate businesses doing the wrong thing not banning across the board.
The point is giving a sop to the disgruntled pharmacists, but they're too dumb to take the win.
Honestly. I don't understand why they're finding this hard to manage. While they're at it, get darts out of Colesworth please
PMI and BAT secured what was pretty much an exclusive contract to sell only thru chemists in a deal with the health minister and the pharmacy guild. PMI and BAT both campaigned for the illegalisation/medicalisation of it so that they could create a monopoly to enrich the guild, the former health minister, the current, liber pharm and themselves. Tobacco sales have been falling in Australia for a very long time, and as Big Tobacco had 0% vape presence prior to Jan 1, they had no real room to get into the competition to try to claw back their lost revenue. So they worked with the gov and the health cabinet to illegalise their competition. This legislation also killed job creation in Australia by banning the local manufacture of nicotine and flavour. Australia wasn't just going to legalise them (they'd been trying to stomp them out since before big tobacco got involved), and even if they did they were dwarfed by non-big tobacco competition.
This country is so deeply corrupt and shortsighted.
Yes 'regulted and taxed' just like all the illegal imported tobacco they sell
There will always be a black market for nicotine products. At least this way people will have access to it through a regulated system
No. 100% this means the return of black market vapes from China and rando flavourings.
What do you mean return? They never left
I honestly have no issue with the flavourings. The government vapes can only be tobacco/menthol flavoured which is a joke. The tobacco type flavouring is more like caramel and even as an ex smoker it was shit in comparison to cigarettes. Currently I vape double apple which tastes like apple shisha. It's like the government banning any alcohol that tastes good and says you can only drink industrial ethanol.
Can they provide unflavoured ones as well? The last thing I want is tobacco or menthol flavouring, they're disgusting.
Hopefully. I would prefer it unflavoured myself.
tobacconists have demonstrated over and over that they are absolutely untrustworthy.
Then why do we let them sell tobacco? My argument is that vapes should be regulated and sold in the same way we sell other nicotine products. Requiring a prescription and selling them through pharmacies will do nothing but create a thriving black market with less safe products It's political pandering, not good policy. This is right up there with 'warning systems' for drugs instead of decriminalisation and drug testing facilities
I’m sure franchisees will be happy to sell after seeing how much of a cash cow it is. Maybe they just want to keep out of the vape turf wars going on.
Nothing to do with the vape turf wars. Organised crime is smart enough to not target pharmacies as that's how the police crack down on them. If that was going to happen, they would already be syphoning off more valuable stuff like opioids with fake scripts/damaged stock etc...
No one wants to buy their mostly big tobacco vapes in crappy mint and tobacco flavours anyway. I'm supporting the black market until we have a sensible regulated retail model for nicotine vapes.
Be aware of the politics of the Australian Pharmacy Guild. Trent Twomey - [President and not a real professor.](https://web.archive.org/web/20230513102818/https://www.afr.com/rear-window/pharmacy-guild-s-president-not-quite-a-full-professor-20210516-p57scn) Gerard Benedet - The founder of the ultraright wing group Advance Australia. The doctors don't like the Pharmacy Guild - [AusDoc investigation: The Pharmacy Guild, its lobbyists and its money](https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/ausdoc-investigation-pharmacy-guild-its-lobbyists-and-its-money/)
I call it the Pharmacy Owners' Guild
Bikies/crime gangs it is then.
"Pharmacists are healthcare professionals and community pharmacies do not want to supply this potentially harmful, highly addictive product without a prescription" Yet every pharmacy and supermarket in Aus has sold nicotine gum, sprays, inhalants and patches without hesitation for years so they don't actually mind selling nicotine products as long as the mark up is high enough and there's no pharmacist consultation required.
I’ve seen this pop up quite a lot in this thread and never understood it. Those products have an actual place in smoking cessation therapy, and have proven to be quite effective. They’re subsidised on the PBS as a prescription item. Vapes are just a replacement for cigarettes, and this is just a poorly masked attempt at restricting supply from the tobacco lobbyists.
The Nicorette type products I referenced aren't on the PBS, aren't subsidised and aren't via prescription. Prescriptions currently exist for vaping as a smoking cessation tool.
You can get NRT patches etc. on a script to get them at the PBS price. Not that they work for me due to some weird reaction.
Nicotinell patches are available on the PBS. The other products (inhalations, gums) are also available as a prescription item though they’re not subsidised. And vaping for smoking cessation is a largely new concept and does not have much evidence base at the current time. They also require special approval, very similar to medical cannabis.
They are also available in hospitals and are on, for example, the Queensland List of Approved Medicines. To get on this list it is a bit like being funded on the PBS - you need to prove it is effective and cost efficient.
Yes some products are prescribed. That doesn't have anything to do with my original comment that non prescribed nicotine products are sold alongside and under the same circumstances as deodorant and lollies and anusol and all the other stuff chemists sell. Vaping as a smoking cessation tool does have sufficient evidence base for doctors to be prescribing it and for the govt to have set up regulatory processes to approve trained doctors.
I’ve seen about 2 prescriptions for nicotine vapes since they’ve been allowed to prescribe it (I think since three years ago? - don’t quote me on this) so it’s definitely not as prevalent as stuff like medical cannabis. My issue is you lump those nicotine products as if they have no therapeutic benefit and pharmacies only stock them to make profit. That is not actually the case, and I was trying to fix your misconception. Pharmacists don’t want to be selling vapes because it’s not therapeutic and de-values the profession as a whole. Yes, they stock perfumes and all that dumb shit but that’s the retail section. The proposed legislation is making it behind the counter i.e. a pharmacy medicine, on the same level as thrush treatment, sleeping tablets, asthma inhalers and migraine medicines. It’s not something we want to be associated with, or be a subset of people we want to deal with in the first place.
" My issue is you lump those nicotine products as if they have no therapeutic benefit" where the heck did I say or imply that? Don't put words in my mouth and say I have misconceptions. "The proposed legislation is making it behind the counter" yes, where it already has been for years. "Not...a subset of people we want to deal with" Wow, there it is. That attitude really has no place at all in medical environments. It's actually horrible to think anyone with a medical condition would have to deal with this ignorance to get their prescribed medicine. Awful.
It has not been behind the counter for years. It’s never been behind the counter at all; you could only get them at tobacconists or as an overpriced prescription item. This shows you are clearly lacking information about the industry and the situation. And when I say I don’t want to deal with it, I meant I don’t want to deal with high schoolers asking for vapes and me having to argue with them as to why I’m refusing supply. I have better uses of my time. There may be a point as to where vapes will be treated as a proper therapeutic product, however that’s a long way away, and this recently legislation by the government certainly won’t help.
Nicotine on its own isn’t harmful (aside from the chemical effect on developing brains). It’s the delivery mechanism via inhalation that would be a cause for concern.
https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.4103/0971-5851.151771 Not true at all, plenty of meta analysis' have found that even on its own nicotine poses direct threats to health.
Thanks, good to know. Another reason to kick my vaping habit.
Nicorette inhalator https://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/buy/67160/nicorette-quit-smoking-nicotine-inhalator-20-pack Nicorette quickmist https://www.chemistwarehouse.com.au/buy/88352/nicorette-quit-smoking-quickmist-nicotine-mouth-spray-cool-berry-3-x-150-pack
And they already sell "inhalater" nicotine. Nicotine is harmful even to grown adults it's highly addictive so ideally no one would be having it at all but a properly regulated system is the next best option
The nicotine isn't the harmful part in cigarettes. It's the addictive part. Selling nicotine products to satisfy that craving and to then help wean off nicotine completely is absolutely appropriate and avoid the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes. There are lots of reports of harm from vaping including things like bronchiolitis obliterans (popcorn lung).
Nicotine is definitely harmful. It fucks up your vascular system. But yes I agree nicotine products are an important tool because smoking is way worse.
> There are lots of reports of harm from vaping including things like bronchiolitis obliterans (popcorn lung). Complete myth. The only cases of popcorn lung come from workers in a popcorn factory where they were breathing in diacetyl all day. Not one single case of popcorn lung has ever been attributed to vaping. And the vast majority of vape juice manufacturers removed diacetyl from all juices as a precaution and also because most vapers did not like the sweet vomit taste of diacetyl anyway.
Kids will still buy their IGETs from corner stores, nicotine addicted adults will go back to cigs. Social panic over!
What a surprise, Chemist Warehouse isn't on the list...
They have no scruples, they are salivating at the prospect of this potential money maker
Yet they have astronomically raised the prices on smoking cessation products to capitalize on all the people addicted to nicotine vapes that will come flooding to their stores for them since the vape ban started. Costs me more now to keep off smoking than to actually smoke (legal) cigarettes. I only stopped because i couldnt afford it anymore, and as a result its now cheaper to actually smoke than quit. fuck them and their BS. This is about money and nothing else. It always is.
Imagine complaining about extra revenue and a captive market...
>In short: Australia's major pharmacy chains have rejected the vaping sales ban passed by parliament on Thursday. They have signalled to franchisees that vaping products should not be sold without prescription. > >What's next? The sales ban will be in force from Monday, making chemists the only legal suppliers
So they want to charge dispensing fees to the government is all. They're holding out for more money, as usual.
Whats next? Us vapers will just go back to how we were doing things in the early days. Dodgy imports from chinese websites.
The early days? Nothing has changed or is going to change, every tobacconist and corner shop still sells vapes and Chinese cigarettes
Yeah I don't want disposables. I like my box mod and tank combo. I like mixing my own juice. Dodgy imports will be back for me.
It's a real shame that all the legitimate stores that were following every law and regulation and would have happily followed every future law and regulation are the biggest ones affected by this meanwhile all the dodgy stores selling to children will continue as usual.
> Whats next? You could quit?
in b4 vapes will be sold at supermarkets and servos only... like ciggies.
I went into a pharmacy on Wednesday and I had to wade through 4 x 4 aisles of inane shit and useless tchotchkes before I got to the medicine section, and even then I had to ask the staff where to find my embarrassing product because the whole store was a shitshow. I hate these places, fuck big pharma.
Very few vapers are even going to buy the pharmacy vapes as they'll be restricted to mint, menthol or tobacco flavour which are flavours nobody wants to vape, they'll also be prohibitively expense and crappy pod systems. What Mark Buttplug seems not to realise is a lot of vapers aren't using them as a cessation tool, they simply enjoy vaping and have no intention of quitting. The end result will be the black market will grow even bigger purely because of supply and demand, the ban will be an absolute failure and disposables will still be openly sold as well as illicit cigarettes. Most smokers don't care if the government is missing out on tax revenue from their habit, why spend $46 for a pack of 20 government sanctioned heavily taxed smokes when you get an under the counter pack of 20 for less than $20.
I’m a pharmacist that it’s only frustrating because at least, in my position, I want to provide care that is evidence based and associated harms are put into review before they are supplied. Last time I checked, there is no significant positive evidence for vapes as a nicotine replacement therapy or smoking cessation aid, but plenty of emerging evidence to indicate the harms from the use of vapes, great or small. From what I’ve read, it’s seems to put pharmacists like myself at odds with our professional guidelines and what they want us to do regardless of best practice and just sell these things as a tobacconist once we establish there is a therapeutic need. That’s where I can’t make sense of supplying something that I can’t justify giving. In the town I live and work in, the shops that stock and sell cigarettes/vapes have had multiple break ins/ram raids and had their complete stock taken or made an attempt to, and leave massive damage behind to a local business and move on to the next town over. I understand there are perceptions on our profession, and I agree done of us have made absolute twits of ourselves, or upsell to meet KPIs. But there is some of us out here who are at least trying their best to give you the best. Just today I was able to provide clear, evidence-based advice for smoking cessation, easy referral points, and supplied a suitable product for someone, when they came in for something completely unrelated but asked for some help in quitting once I asked a few questions to help.
we should allow police station to make some money by selling vapes?
The pharmacist guild are always complaining about the dumbest shit
The same pharmacists recognize vaping as a smoking cessation tool but have no issues selling patches, gum, mouth spray etc.
The lollypop guild complaining? Must be a day ending in Y
It's funny cause many already do.
Just stick to the beer and smokes
They shouldn't sell that shit in the first place ffs.
Anyone know whats involved to start an online "Pharmacy"? Asking for a friend.
For the people blaming the Guild (as evil as they are). CW aren’t members and are usually on bad terms with Guild. I don’t think it’s nefarious. Maybe pharmacies just don’t want to sell tobacco products ?
Weren't they already dispensing e-cigarette prescriptions?