Queensland must do better on vaping

Transcript: AMA Queensland President, Dr Maria Boulton, ABC Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast, Mornings with Alex Easton, Thursday 18 August 2022

Subjects: Vaping and Dirty Ashtray Award

ALEX EASTON:   The Palaszczuk government has won a national award, but it's one they're not going to want. The Australian Medical Association has given Queensland the Dirty Ashtray Award for not doing enough to discourage vaping. It's illegal in Australia to sell nicotine vaping products without a prescription, but Queensland isn't enforcing the laws well enough. And that means products are fairly easily available, particularly for targeted teenagers. Dr Maria Boulton is the President of AMA Queensland. Maria, can we start maybe just by explaining the difference between vaping and cigarettes?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   So, vapes are those little tiny brightly coloured receptacles that contain liquid in them that people sometimes inhale, and then you see a mountain of smoke come out. Sadly, they come in very brightly coloured packages, they come in all sorts of flavours like tutti frutti, bubble gum, strawberry, and sometimes they contain nicotine and sometimes they don't. And the sad thing is that there's this misconception that if they don't contain nicotine, then they must be safe. And it's far from the truth. We know that those vaping products, even if they don't contain nicotine, they have harmful gases that can actually injure your lungs. They can cause seizures, they can actually burn your lungs. And it actually increases the risk that that person will actually become a cigarette smoker by three times. So, they're not great. They're really dangerous. And we know also that some of those vapes that get sold when they say that they don't contain any nicotine, actually have nicotine. And sometimes they can have as much as 50 times the nicotine that cigarettes contain.

ALEX EASTON:   So, supposedly nicotine free vapes contain 50 times or can contain 50 times the nicotine of a cigarette?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   Yes, they can. And this is the trouble with this industry is that it's highly unregulated and there's not enforcement going on. And there's not enough checking of the actual vapes to see what they actually contain.

ALEX EASTON:   You've just described the risks with vaping, where nicotine isn't present, even though in some of these cases it actually is. But when people are using vapes that do have nicotine in them, does that make them more dangerous or is it just the same issue, but more addictive?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   It’s both. It depends on how much nicotine, if you consider some of those vapes may have 50 times the amount of nicotine of a cigarette, it does make them increasingly more dangerous, but also extremely addictive. And we are all aware of the harmful effects of smoking cigarettes, and it's all the same. But the issue is that these products are freely available and they're too accessible to children. And with those brightly coloured packages and those tutti frutti, strawberry flavours, they're much more appealing to children. And they're also much easier for children to have in their pocket.

ALEX EASTON:    This is something that's been raised before with the packaging that is designed to look almost like packages for lollies and that kind of thing. And that was raised quite a few years ago, but that's still the case. It still appears to be marketed very much to kids in the way that it's packaged and sold.

DR MARIA BOULTON:   Yeah, that's right. And sometimes it's sold in retail areas that have lollies. I did a trip to Sydney recently, and a lot of the vaping sellers, you walk in the door and there's just a wall full of lollies. It makes it quite attractive for children, a very, very colourful place to enter. And then behind the counter, you have all these vapes.

ALEX EASTON:   So that's in Sydney, but it's Queensland that's won the Dirty Ashtray Award. So, what's Sydney doing right with that description that you've just given that doesn't sound very right? So, Queensland must be doing something even worse than that. What's Queensland doing?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   All states could be doing better. And Queensland actually received this joint award with Victoria as well, so they're not doing too well either. And I guess what we're not doing is we're not enforcing the legislation. Also in our state, our tobacco product retailers are not registered. So, it makes it very difficult for government to know who's selling these products, and who they have to pay a visit to, and inspect the premises, and inspect the vapes. And I guess what we're calling for in the first instance is for those tobacco sellers to be licensed, registered so that we know where they are, so that they can be inspected and the law can be enforced properly.

ALEX EASTON:   Australia has some of the tightest tobacco rules in the world, and I'm just recalling the fuss that the tobacco companies made when we shifted to plain packaging and put the big warnings on the package with the big graphic warnings. This seems very inconsistent that we have these really tight rules about cigarettes, but then just drop the ball completely when it comes to vapes.

DR MARIA BOULTON:   Yeah, and I guess that's the irony, isn't it? That we're doing so well when it comes to cigarette smoking. And actually Queensland has won some awards in the past few years because of what they do about controlling cigarette smoking. But I think what's happening with vaping, it's like anything on the internet, it's just grown so quickly. We've had a bit of trouble keeping pace with the growth. And I think our laws are just playing catch up and I think we need to do better because there's too many children and too many young adults are vaping. And I think that's why we need urgent action on this issue.

ALEX EASTON:   Now, I understand that you are planning to actually put the Dirty Ashtray Award up on display at state parliament for everyone to see. I can't imagine that's going to make the state government too comfortable. How's that going down?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   I was really embarrassed to receive this award on behalf of our state, but we're doing it so that we can increase awareness and create some action because at the end of the day, we all want our children to be protected. The other day, I was at school sports with one of my children and there were two - they couldn't have been more than 12 years of age - girls talking about what vape they would prefer, whether it would be strawberry or mint. And it was awful. And then they proceeded onto saying how safe they were. And I felt like correcting them right there on the spot. And I think we need to do that as well. I think we need to educate young people to let them know that it is actually not safe. I don't think there's enough of that happening. And I think we need to do better in that area.

ALEX EASTON:   Well, if you're listening to radio or reading newspapers, you're hearing a lot of conversations like that and reading a lot of articles on this kind of thing, but you're not seeing the same heavy public education campaign that has gone with smoking. Apart from just tightening up the regulations, is that the thing that you want to see, a really heavy public education campaign to put people off vapes?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   Absolutely. I want to see as much education as possible, but I also would like to have enforcement of the laws as well. I think we need to do better in Queensland.

ALEX EASTON:   Do you think it's going to happen?

DR MARIA BOULTON:   I hope so. And that's why we're doing all this awareness today and I hope to create some awareness when we go and display the award as well.

ALEX EASTON:   All right. It should be interesting to see how that goes down. Maria Boulton, thank you so much for your time this morning.