At a busy pharmacy in Perth, where customers are waiting for their medicine, the queues are about to get longer.
In an effort to stamp out recreational vaping across Australia, pharmacies have just become the only places in the country allowed to sell vapes of any sort. Soon, controversially, they will be able to sell nicotine vapes without a prescription.
The move has infuriated pharmacists who fear that a step intended to improve national health will effectively turn their premises into modern-day tobacconists. “This is just going to create more hassle for me,” a senior pharmacist said wearily from behind the counter.
Australia has some of the strictest vaping laws in the world. Smoking e-cigarettes containing nicotine has been illegal without a prescription since October 2021 and the import of disposable vapes was banned in January. But vaping rates have surged among younger people and children, as cheap vapes have been brazenly sold anyway in corner shops, petrol stations and online.
As e-cigarettes have infiltrated school playgrounds, the percentage of 14 to 17-year-olds who have tried them has nearly tripled from 9.6 per cent in 2019 to 28 per cent in 2022-23, according to the latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey.
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The Labor government has responded to concerns that a new generation is getting hooked on nicotine. Last Monday, Australia became the first country in the world to outlaw the sale of all vapes, whether they contain nicotine or not, apart from in pharmacies.
The domestic manufacture, supply and commercial possession of non-therapeutic and disposable vapes is now illegal, with jail sentences of up to seven years and fines rising up to almost A$2.2 million (£1.16 million) for an individual and A$22 million (£11.6 million) for business.
Vapes must be sold in plain packaging — a move that Australia pioneered with cigarettes more than a decade ago. They are also restricted to three flavours — tobacco, menthol and mint — in an effort to banish the sickly sweet flavours such as bubblegum and candy floss that have proved so appealing to teenagers.
The concentration of nicotine in vapes sold in pharmacies without a prescription will be limited to 20mg per ml — less than half the nicotine content found in many vapes sold on the black market.
The UK appears likely to follow Australia’s lead with Sir Keir Starmer’s new government promising to back legislation introduced by Rishi Sunak to crack down on youth vaping by banning disposable vapes, introduce plain packaging, and restricting sweet and fruity flavours.
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However, Australia’s Labor government has found itself at loggerheads with the nation’s chemists, over a deal that it was forced to make to secure support for the latest bill in the senate from the Green party, which is staunchly opposed to prohibition, believing it merely drives consumers to the black market.
As a result, nicotine vapes are being reclassified from prescription-only drugs, like statins or antidepressants, to medication that can be dispensed from behind the counter only by a pharmacist, like emergency contraception or salbutamol inhalers for asthma.
Pharmacists will be required to ask for ID and have a discussion with the customer before deciding whether to sell them a vape. The changes come in on October 1, with only under-18s still requiring a prescription.
Independent pharmacies and main chains including Priceline, National Pharmacies, and Blooms have strongly opposed the changes, with many indicating that they will no longer stock vapes.
Anthony Tassone, vice-president of the Pharmacy Guild, said he was “gobsmacked” by the changes. The guild, a representative body for the industry, said it was “insulting” for community pharmacies to become “vape retailers, and vape garbage collectors”.
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Pharmacists fear that they will not be covered under insurance if they are sued by customers who later become ill from vaping. These concerns are made worse because no vaping products available on prescription are approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia’s drugs watchdog.
Dr Fei Sim is a community pharmacist in Perth and the national president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia. Although initially opposed to scrapping prescriptions for vapes, the society is working on guidelines to help members advise their customers.
“The public cannot and should not expect to just simply walk into a pharmacy, ask for a vape and be given a vape,” she said. “Pharmacies are not vape shops or convenience stores. Pharmacists are healthcare professionals.”
Opponents of the reforms argue that criminalising recreational vaping has fuelled the black market, exposing more children to cheap, unregulated disposable vapes imported from China and sold illegally in shops and online.
Calls to treat vapes more like cigarettes by allowing them to be sold in other shops but heavily regulating and taxing them have also grown louder, including from Big Tobacco, which controls much of the e-cigarette industry.
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The main Australian opposition is a coalition made up of the right-wing National Party, which receives funding from the tobacco giants British American Tobacco and Philip Morris, and the centre-right Liberal Party, which does not. It announced plans to reverse the retail ban on vape sales if it wins the next election, which is due next May at the latest.
Peter Dutton, the coalition leader, has promised instead to create an A$250 million tobacco taskforce led by the border force and the federal police to tackle the organised crime syndicates that control the booming vape black market.
Current vaping restrictions have not been policed properly, partly because non-nicotine vapes were, until last week, legal for people aged 18 and over.
The government said the sales ban for nicotine-free vapes will make it easier to enforce the law, as health authorities will no longer have to send vapes seized from shops to be tested for nicotine. But the early signs are not overly promising. Convenience stores are openly selling banned nicotine vapes to customers.
Last week I was able to buy an illegal blueberry-ice flavoured e-cigarette, packed with nicotine, for $55 from one shop in central Perth, which had boxes of vapes in a dazzling array of colours and flavours lined up on the counter.
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“No one is listening to the rules,” the shop assistant said, puffing away at a vape.
