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The director of the University of Auckland’s Center for Cancer Research says New Zealand shouldn’t follow Australia’s lead in banning recreational vaping.
The Australian government is planning strong controls on the import and packaging of e-cigarettes, which no non-prescription sales.
Dr George Laking says that’s heavy-handed.
He says the challenge for policy makers is to balance vaping as a public health tool with the undesirability of rangatahi taking it up.
“The Australian remedy for this is just to push the settings right over to a ban of vaping which is really not going to help the people who still need to stop smoking,” Dr Laking says.
He says even though we still don’t know the long-term effects of vaping, it’s still a lot less dangerous way of getting nicotine than by smoking cigarettes.
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