Much more than 13 tonnes of disposable vapes with a avenue value of $4.5m have been seized by Australian Border Power officers.
The 250,000 disposable vapes uncovered in air cargo consignments in Adelaide comprise the initially big-scale seizure because the ban on the importation of disposable solitary-use vapes came into outcome on 1 January.
The ABF stated it became suspicious when 14 air cargo consignments arrived from the identical vacation spot declaring they ended up carrying a “refillable atomiser”.
The consignments contained 10 tonnes of disposable vapes and even further investigation led to the seizure of a few far more tonnes. Inquiries into the illicit importation are continuing.
The assistant commissioner of the ABF, Chris Waters, reported “this is a clear sign to the neighborhood that the new vaping regime was well and genuinely underneath way”.
“We anticipate lots of intercontinental vaping suppliers will continue on to endeavor to deliver goods to Australia, and may well seek to modify their behaviour to stay away from detection,” Waters claimed.
“All Australian suppliers of vaping products and solutions need to heed this discover. If you endeavor to conceal imports of vapes, we will uncover and intercept them.”
The health minister, Mark Butler, claimed the seizure confirmed that the new vaping plan was operating.
“Before our federal government improved the loopholes in current guidelines, hundreds of thousands and thousands and thousands of disposable vapes have been ready to flood into Australia – vapes that are deliberately promoted at our children,” Butler stated.
“Single use disposable vapes are brightly coloured and bubble-gum flavoured, intended to entice youthful children who are employing them.
“About 1 in six superior faculty students are vaping, and about one particular in 4 youthful Australians aged between 18 and 24 are vaping,” Butler mentioned.
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Additional legislation prepared for later on this yr will also avert the advertising and marketing, offer, or professional possession of non-therapeutic and disposable vapes, tighten lawful loopholes to finish private importation, and control nicotine stages and flavours in prescription vapes.
In an editorial revealed in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of General public Well being past week, primary Australian tobacco manage professionals counseled the government’s reform agenda, but termed for the further more reforms to be launched urgently.
The CEO of the Public Overall health Affiliation of Australia, Terry Slevin, explained that “we urgently need to have these reforms in spot to guard the upcoming generation from reckless merchants and the destructive nicotine industry”.
The seizure’s announcement comes the similar day as the NSW governing administration released a new marketing campaign featuring actual youthful people aged 14 to 24 who have knowledgeable the harms of vaping.
The marketing campaign, created in consultation with younger men and women and healthcare gurus, aims to really encourage young people today to look at the established well being harms of vaping, this sort of as nicotine addiction, lung hurt, breathlessness, nicotine poisoning and burns from exploding vapes.