Twelve years ago, despite the fierce political lobbying power of big tobacco, Australia led the world when it introduced plain-paper packaging for cigarettes.
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The rationale of the legislation was to strip away the glitz associated with the product, much like the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act had a decade before.
And to further erode the appeal, there was a steady ramping of tobacco excise. More than 73 per cent of the final sale price of cigarettes now is excise and GST.
Marketing and consumer convenience have always been the two key tools by big tobacco to attract smokers and hang on to them as repeat customers, with nicotine addiction doing the rest of the dirty work.
And the same proven tools were applied to sucking consumers into vaping, with the added "bonus" that within that simple, oh-so-convenient electronic device was an unknown quantity of nicotine, plus other range of nasty chemicals like glycol and benzene.
Vaping is an issue that desperately needed a circuit breaker and the Senate's passing of the vaping reform bill on Wednesday is another much-needed health intervention by government.
Unscrupulous businesses - with big tobacco lurking in the shadows - have been selling lolly-flavoured and brightly coloured nicotine vapes to teenagers and young people for years. Millions of dollars have been made by compromising the health of our young people and profiting from addiction.
But the demand for these products, some as a legitimate route to cease smoking, will remain. So by introducing plain-packaging - as with cigarettes, stripping out the marketing tool - and then making nicotine e-cigarettes and vapes available through the pharmacies was a logical pathway.
From July 1, vapes containing nicotine can only be legally sold by pharmacies to people who have a prescription from their doctor.
But this regime will only operate for three months when vapes containing nicotine will be downgraded from schedule 4 to schedule 3 of the poisons standard. After that, pharmacists will basically become like vape dispensers, with no prescription required.
It's a bit like slamming the door, then opening it a crack again. Understandably, the medical profession is most unhappy, demanding all vapes be prescription only.
However, as is often the case, this outcome was a political compromise, two steps forward and one back. But it was an outcome best grabbed, rather than lost completely.
In response, the black market for vapes and tobacco is operating under full steam, er, smoke, ahead. Millions of dollars in Chinese-branded fags and vapes have been seized by police on the Hume Highway in recent weeks, with one van containing a commercial grade hydraulic cigarette-rolling machine.
This illicit product drive is a big step up from the old under-the-counter "chop-chop" loose-leaf tobacco trade.
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The illegal, no-excise market for vapes and tobacco is a huge, mega-million dollar business and now the control mechanisms have been tightened further, it's only going to get an even more lucrative cash machine for organised crime.
Border Force already has its hands full. Only 11 days ago, raids in and around Perth - including tobacco and convenience stores - unearthed 5.9 million illicit cigarettes. $1.7 million in proceeds of crime, 1.4 tonnes of loose illicit tobacco and 41,000 vapes.
Tough legislative action has been taken but this is just an opening salvo: the vape and tobacco wars have barely begun.
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