Back in 1963 Martin Luther King stated that “We have a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”. This is ever so true of the present situation in Australia where the anti-smoking AND anti-vaping campaign deriving itself as a result of the former for the standard set by that country express themselves at their most prohibitive and authoritarian level unlike anywhere else in the rest of the world and where vaping is prohibited without a medical prescription having attained the description of being ‘recreational’ vaping but where teenagers and young people are constantly breaking the law with retailers who are selling and youngsters who are using vapes despite their prohibition.
As the current situation is progressively getting out of control in an age of intense smoking prohibition the Australian authorities are attempting to ban disposable vapes and their use and sale even though all vapes are already banned without a medical prescription with their use and importation in Australia.
Only adults over 18 in Australia can obtain a prescription to use a vaping device but that means that over 18s are not generally entitled to buy or use them in spite of their matured age. Nevertheless vapes are constantly being so-called marketed at underage children and teenagers to satisfy their young peculiarity and taste.
However illegal sales under the counter and illegal use of vaping devices and now also disposable vapes have become a recent scandal in Australia as the present situation is progressively getting out of control for the government and authorities. Government officials are declaring themselves to be determined to ban disposable vapes and enforce plain packaging to the remaining vapes that are bought and sold illegally under their noses and the counter at the time when all vaping devices are already banned from commercial goods and their trade is taking place illegally.
Meanwhile this vaping scandal currently taking place in Australia the equivalent of which has been named as a revolution in the UK is converting itself into a revolution for Australia alike as 25% of young people aged between 18 and 24 years have tried or are still vaping. With this degree of popularity the Australian government is set to spend 60 million dollars of taxpayers’ money to combat not underage but comprehensively illegal vaping sales and use particularly aimed at young people in campaigns and make it easier instead to obtain a prescription for each person.
The Australian health minister as usual to occur accused the tobacco industry that they want to get a new generation hooked on nicotine use and indicated to 50 children under the age of 4 ingesting it from vapourisers. He also plans to enforce plain packaging to the banned vaping devices that are already sold illegally throughout the country. So that vapourisers appear to be kitsch according to the state-owned perception of taste and the same to each other when they are already banned from the market. Awkwardly none of the health minister’s prepositions were out of the question of being made!
In an opinionated and fanaticised message Mark Butler from the Australian anti-smoking regime serving as the health minister of the Albanese government declared by carefully choosing his words that “Vaping was sold to governments and communities around the world as a therapeutic product to help long-term smokers quit. It was not sold as a recreational product – especially not one for our kids. But that is what it has become: the biggest loophole in Australian history. “.
Meanwhile minister of Australian government services Bill Shorten said that “We don’t want the tobacco industry reinventing itself in the guise of lolly flavoured vapes hooking kids as young as 12, 13, and 14. I think it’s pretty insidious the way they’re currently promoted, they’re promoted as lollies, they’re promoted as sort of fun things. Vapes can come looking as toys, we’ve got to stop that because that’s how they’re hooking teenagers”.
But the Australian version of the British Labour Party as usual to occur is at work about the anti-smoking campaign within the British Commonwealth of Nations. The leading opposition National Party proposed to commercially legalise and restrict vaping but the Albanese government rejected those proposals originating by the party previously in government by logically arguing that it would ‘only make vaping more accessible’.
Director of Legalise Vaping Australia Brian Marlow told Sky News Australia that “We want to legalise these products and regulate them, in a similar way that cigarettes are regulated. We are not seeing a cigarette epidemic among young Australians anymore because we have strong control measures. We do not want to see vaping normalised.” He suggested that if vaping were to be legalised in the country unsuitable condensation and appealing products to those underaged would be removed from the shelves and brought the example of New Zealand and the UK where vaping is utilised to quit and replace smoking.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 