Online vape seller has ‘no intention of stopping’ shipments to Australia, despite nationwide ban — ‘We have no intention of stopping just because of one twat in Canberra.’::The New Zealand-based seller issued a notice to its Australian customers that shipments will continue regardless of the government’s vape reform.
Leave vaping alone, but ban those single use vapes with rechargable lithium ion batteries in them. It’s absolutely insane to me the amount of waste from throwing out perfectly good rechargeable batteries after one cycle.
They banned it in its entirety in Australia for health reasons and the children.
Smokes are A ok though
Tobacco lobby go brrrr
Sort of, but honestly the vapes have created a new generation of smokers and they should have banned them much sooner (unless you have a prescription and actual plan to use them to quit smoking). They were much easier for new people to get into and we went from smoking dying out to a sizeable number of young smokers.
The tobacco companies have done very well out of vaping
If the government, 5-10 years ago when it would have been apropos to do so, looked into vaping and drew up specific regulations to have legal vaping, we wouldn’t have the issue we have today. Instead, because of almost a decade of inaction, we now have a new generation of nicotine addicts that they’re hurriedly trying to stop.
We needed regulated, plain-packaged and limited-flavour vapes available to legally buy at a reasonable price to quash out both smoking and prevent kids from getting addicted, but that horse has already bolted.
The cynic in me says they intentionally didn’t regulate vapes because the science wasn’t ready yet, and they didn’t want to accept any blame for legalising something that could end up to be pretty harmful in the long term. So, because they didn’t want to accept that risk then we now have a whole generation of vapers whose health issues we’ll be dealing with for 80+ years to come.
Spoken as an ex-smoker, current vaper as a smoking cessation method.
You had me until “limited flavor”, why? How is the alcohol industry allowed to create insane flavors (blue raspberry, literally any fruit, rocket popsicle, etc) but the tobacco industry can’t? Makes no sense.
Adults should be allowed to enjoy things they want to. Perhaps if the government was stricter with id laws and online ordering we wouldn’t be in this situation. There are far too many shops I’ve seen that don’t check ID and THAT is how kids are getting them. The flavors have nothing to do with it (remember, terrible flavors didn’t stop kids of the 80s from smoking).
IMO it has more to do with online glorification than anything else
Back in my day kids smoked Marlboros because they were cool. Not because they tasted like fruit loops.
As someone who used to smoke 1-2 packs a day, got heavy into vaping (including building my own coils, mods, mixing juice, etc), quit completely by tapering down the nicotine levels, later started back up with pouches, and now vapes pot, I gotta say, banning flavors is fucking stupid.
My state of Massachusetts has banned all flavors of tobacco and vape, Including menthol. You can only get vapor products in unflavored or “tobacco” variants.
The funny thing is, “tobacco” isn’t really a “flavor”. It’s still flavor additives put into the suspension. So the additives clearly aren’t the problem. Tobacco flavored vape products are usually some combination of maple, charred brown sugar, and molasses. Not the actual ingredients, just flavorings that approximate them.
And the additives are generally food grade flavorings. You can legit just go out to Homegoods and buy a pack (as long as you know the right ones, don’t do this at home) and steep a very small amount of whatever flavors you want into your unflavored nic.
My point exactly, the flavors are not the problem. A lot of states have banned them yet the problem persists, because it was never about the flavors. It’s 100% a social thing IMO, online glorification and peer pressure.
Not peer pressure like how its depicted in the media, but real peer pressure. Your friends vape, and they’re always vaping around you – then one day you get a little curious about it and it snowballs from there.
That’s a fair call. I just think all reasonable measures should be taken to limit the attractiveness of vapes to children, and that’s just one piece of the puzzle. It’s not a necessary piece, but I think it would have helped as part of a suite of measures to regulation. I think you’re right in that online glorification definitely had a role to play here as well.
Bleh. Vaping isn’t smoking and it’s not harmful, while nicotine is generally good for the mind and only a fairly mild stim, I couldn’t imagine my mornings without some nicotine, amphetamine and caffeine.
Priorities
Removed by mod
The disposable one I’m using has a rechargeable battery and an LCD screen lol. So wasteful. I’ve been saving my dead ones and will be salvaging the battery and screens for a side project.
Just out of curiosity what’s preventing you from getting a refillable setup? You can get refillable, rechargable vapes for about $10 more than a single disposable and it’ll probably save you money within the month depending on how much you use it.
Well I wasn’t planning on vaping for very long, just enough to stop smoking. However, I finally did get honest with myself and get a refillable not too long ago.
Yeah, it was exactly like that for me too. Bought a few disposables (still have them in my drawer, will probably bring them to the supermarket for recycling at some point) because I didn’t want to actually start vaping but realized that I already did.
No, do not leave vaping alone. Just because some asshat companiea found a new way to exploit health damage for profit does not mean it should be allowed because freedumb.
Let me consume nicotine in the least harmful method available. You don’t get to dictate what I do with my body. That includes all drugs.
Nicotine eCigarettes are still available by prescription
I disagree with the chosen changes , but they come as a result of nicotine being found in the vast majority of “nicotine-free” vapes and juices. So we’re not really coming from a position of “choose what goes into your body”.
You mean nicotine gum? Or nicotine patches right? Because those are still legal.
Nicotine gum is not more healthy. You can develop serious issues with your gums and stomach. Nicotine is not meant to be ingested, and gum makes that particularly easy.
Nicotine isn’t “meant” for anything. It’s a side product from a plant that works as a form of protection.
There is no healthy was to use it, but that’s true for almost everything in the world. There are responsible ways to use it, and most drugs should be legal to allow for this. If they’re illegal they’re still going to be purchased and used, but they’re not going to go through regulations that could prevent harm from factors that can be controlled for.
I am not sure what your point is. All I am saying is different substances do better with different ROA. Rock Candy isn’t healthy, however it’s much less healthy if you aggressively insert it into your rectum.
There is a reason there are no nicotine beverages and the gum specifically says not to swallow while using it.
I wasn’t countering what you were saying, but adding to it. Some people think there are no bad health effects from vaping nicotine. Nicotine, at minimum, is bad for you heart though. I’m fine with people making the informed choice to use it, but no one should be under the allusion that there’s a certain way that it’s meant to be used and it’s healthy.
Sure, but can we then tax the product for the actual health risk?
And least damaging? How about gum, or tabs. No popcorn lung involved.
Popcorn lung does not come from vaping any sort of regular vape juice that is on the market anymore. Popcorn lung came from inhaling vape juices that had Diacetyl, or Vitamin E acetate. These were used for flavoring in the early days of vapes before it was found out that they cause popcorn lung. It was also more common in THC vapes than nicotine ones.
I haven’t heard of one case of it happening since then, as all of the vape juice manufacturers stopped adding these ingredients years ago. I’m not saying vaping isn’t bad for you, it definitely is, but popcorn lung is not something anyone needs to be concerned about anymore. It is definitely not as bad for your health as smoking cigarettes, at least.
You are correct that gum or nicotine pouches are the least damaging way to consume nicotine.
Popcorn lung came from inhaling vape juices that had Diacetyl, or Vitamin E acetate.
The nasty cases were Vitamin E acetate, not diacetyl. Diacetyl is butter aroma, same stuff as in actual butter, probably not dangerous at all at sane concentrations, certainly at the amount sensible for vape juice. Cigarette smoke contains more diacetyl than the highest ever measured concentrations in vapes and somehow noone is arguing that cigarettes are causing popcorn lung – they do nasty shit, but not that particular kind of particularly nasty. The original popcorn lung cases were workers in a factory producing popcorn and handling the stuff pretty much pure, though TBH I’m not entirely convinced it was actually diacetyl and not something else.
I definitely agree. Most of the worst cases of vape related injury that I have ever read about involved terribly made THC cartridges containing Vitamin E acetate. I just know there were claims of popcorn lung and diacetyl in vape juices in the early days of vaping.
FWIW, I worked at a smoke shop for a few years during this time and we sold a lot of vape stuff from China. I never heard of a single customer complaint about anything health related to nicotine vapes, and these were the days where people were using those giant mods and blowing obnoxious clouds of vapor.
Abortion is bad for the fetus’s health. Perhaps we should tax it 1000%. While we are at it let’s tax Soda and Sugar. Fuck it lets tax cosmetic surgery, I mean it is such a waste and so risky.
If we are going to go down this road of controlling other people’s bodies let’s go all the way then.
Sugar is already being taxed, and this will grow. High fructose should be extra taxed yes. Abortion seems out of place in your rabid “muh freedumbs” response.
There is a responsibility for a government to protect the health of citizens. I can see this (and drugs) being properly regulated. And then people can buy and use as they see fit. But just free sales, no.
I don’t agree with those taxes. People are free to do with their body what they want, provided it’s not harmful to others. This is not the responsibility of the government.
Providing education so people can make informed decisions about the risks of the behaviors they engage in - now that’s a government (and parental) responsibility.
Yeah, same as with vaccination. Your decisions influence a lot of others.
Even if the government properly informs people, not everyone is able to make an informed decision.
Private companies abusing the system and hurting many people along the way is not something that should be celebrated as freedom. And this is a perfect example of that. Health, the environment everything can be sacrificed in the name of profit.
As long as I don’t have to subsidise their health care
Well I’m glad you are there to dictate what someone can and can’t do with their body. We only want people to engage in activities if they are state sanctioned.
As an alternative, government regulates all sorts of things. Alcohol, gambling, cigarettes, firearms.
The government is the counterweight to corporations abusing people that might not be able to resist and the VERY negative societal impacts this has.
The fact you think this is unnecessary makes you very fortunate that you never had to deal with the negative externalities of these companies.
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The thing about shipping internationally is that you generally need a logistics partner to actually physically move the packages for you, and they also have a legal responsibility to ensure that what they are carrying is legal. I don’t know what number of packages you need to have seized by customs before they stop doing business with you, but I’d doubt it’s much more than 1.
As a bonus, there are only a handful of logistics companies in NZ that do international outbound, and they are the major domestic delivery companies as well, so if you fuck around enough you could end up finding out that no one will deliver your packages locally either
Pretty sure ceased should be seized.
Honk. Yup
Those rules might apply to the sender… but the customer who places the order doesn’t get off so lightly. They can go to jail for five years for importing a drugs without a license.
That’s not even really a vape thing. Nicotine is a drug. Importing cigarettes is also illegal with the exception of travellers in person can bring a few packets with them.
It wouldn’t be hard to catch people - international shipping requires labels declaring the contents. And if the vape seller is lying on those declarations then they’re breaking NZ laws.
I can confirm that the rules do apply to the sender. You have to declare on a package what’s inside. For businesses using the normal postal system this is generally done electronically and also printed on the package so they’ll just be intercepted and binned. We ship product to Australia frequently and this is how it’s done. Same with private carriers but slightly different process. It’s still clear what’s inside.
Even if they try to avoid the ban by not putting correct customs information it’ll quickly become apparent to Australian customs which packages to seize who will then work directly with the private carrier if necessary (though it is prohibitively expensive to ship to more remote locations in Australia with private carriers so unlikely they will be used).
In short this is bluster.
Darknet markets have no issues shipping millions of packages internationally that contain drugs or steroids. Why should this be any different for these vapes?
- I think you’ll find “millions” is an exaggeration
- Depends on how happy you are with risking prison
a lot of darknet vendors don’t even bother with australia and their insane import controls, at best it’s a “no refunds” type of situation
Top kek
Damn it’s been a minute since I’ve seen a kek.
Good ol’ kek
these things have been flooding in and being sold to kids through vape stores – nine out of ten which have been established within walking distance of schools. That’s no accident, they’re doing that because that is their target market.
That’s some bullshit. I assume there’s already a law banning the sale of vapes to minors.
Schools are built next to residential neighborhoods. Those same neighborhoods with adults living in them are the target market, not kids. Just like cannabis stores are absolutely everywhere now in Canada (including within walking distance of most schools).Turns out that most places are within walking distance of a school. Did you know HITLER breathed air?
That’s it, I’ve taken my last breath!
Went to the (rec) dispensary the other day.
There’s a house across the street, and their kids had a table set up, selling Girl Scout cookies.
Honestly nobody cares. And I hate that it’s illegal for me to park at the dispensary and leave my kids (with my wife) in the car. Under 21 not allowed on the property.
But I can bring my kids into a liquor store. I’d rather bring a bull into a China shop, but I can do it. Can’t even have them in the parking lot of the dispensary.
Where I live, you have to be 21 to enter a liquor store
The three US states I’ve lived in all allowed children in liquor stores if accompanied by a parent or guardian
If you try to buy alcohol in Dan Murphys with kids then you’ll get the third degree. If they’re teenage kids then they won’t sell to you. Meanwhile if I order online it gets delivered to my door and my postie just leaves it there.
Unfortunately not bullshit.
Here in Australia, just about every tobacco store was selling them under the counter to kids, often still wearing their school uniforms. Worst still, most of the vapes were dodgy grey market imports with undeclared and often dangerous chemicals in them as well as nicotine. There were more of these stores near schools then there were stores that sell candy.
Common sense dispenery laws for both vapes and recreational cannabis like Canada would make sense here too but our politicians are too beholden to corporate interests and think of the children fear mongering.
What “dodgy grey market” people benefit in any way by adding extra bad stuff?
Cheaper to get, bulks it out, flavours it more efficiently? Any number of reason.
There was that apple sauce scandal in the US recently where kids were getting chunky doses of lead because waaaaaaaay down the production chain, some dude grinding cinnamon in Ecuador chose to bulk out his milling output with lead chromate (for the red-orange colour pop) amongst other powders which were not cinnamon.
More government testing up and down the production chain could help stop that sort of thing. Hopefully dodgy imports avoiding the tests at one level, would get clamped at another.
Basically yeah, it’s cheaper to use chemicals other than what’s approved to make a chemical vape. We were seeing a bit of an endemic of kids being hospitalised because of them.
It’s worth keeping in mind these vapes were coming from the same place where even baby formula wasn’t off limits to substitute dangerous chemicals into to save a buck.
Whether or not you think Australia should have such a ban, a company trying to provoke a war with a nations customs service is a true “fuck around, and find out” moment
Are cigarettes banned as well or do they get massive taxes from their sale like in the US?
Australia is the most expensive place in the world for cigarettes so… The latter. But they won’t ban it because it makes the govt. so much money.
Didn’t they ban it for the younger gen?
That’s NZ, not AU, but the ban got repealed
Edit: didn’t realize the online seller is based in NZ
Repealed because a hard right wing government got in and removed it to pay for tax cuts for the rich.
I heard cigarette taxes are the preferred form of sin tax because typically smokers pay more in taxes than they use in healthcare etc on the way out. Nicotine addicts die fast and are tax efficient, unlike alcohol or gambling addicts.
A good example of a policy that can kind of make a form of “objective” economic sense for the government to do, but is actually totally immoral, cruel, and inefficient. A good example of why governments shouldn’t be run like companies, basically.
Banning vices has rarely (if ever?) gone well. Far better to tax and regulate them to at least reduce the harms by making it less affordable/dangerous and mitigate them with revenues that can be used to repair the damage.
You know I would kind of off the cuff think that probably the optimal solution would be something that prevents general accessibility for the population at large, but encourages, and makes it more easily accessible for those who already have problems with it, and then kind of, chase solutions from there. Of course, I think probably that solution would lend itself more towards a country or state that cares whether or not you’re going homeless or sleeping in your car or what have you, because it’s generally easier to keep track of less marginalized populations.
This isn’t really to advocate for a ban, but there’s definitely a kind of fine middle ground between full bans and completely free easy access. I think the thing that strikes me the most as a kind of, huge dick move, is mostly that it’s kind of a purely short term financial calculation of, oh, smokers are going to pay a lot more in taxes than in healthcare, and they die quick, so that’s economically good. But of course, you wouldn’t want a country made up entirely of smokers, and I don’t think that would be good, or pay out the best in long term societal, or even purely economic, benefits. I’m skeptical of blanket calls for total drug legalization just as I am skeptical for blanket calls for bans. Usually, there’s more nuance to the situation than that, which unfortunately tends to be the thing most leveraged to enforce the status quo or pass bad austerity legislation.
All but, massive taxing, plain packaging laws and more controls like can smoke in public places, banned in bars banned in restaurants and hotels ect. Its being “phased out” slowly turning the heat up until its gone.
I believe they will have to start smuggling their product the old-fashioned way, I mean like the cartels do with illegal drugs.
Inb4 my mate, Paul, smuggled a gallon of nicotine up his arse…
The real question here is, are there (mostly) harmless?
They fill landfills with descartable batteries, causing a lot of contamination. This is not the reason they’re being banned, but it should be.
Ironically a lot of US states have banned reusable vapes but allow disposable ones making the problem worse
That’s only true for disposable vapes tho and I think a Pfand system, like we have for plastic bottles in Germany, would be a way better idea. People are already illegaly shipping them in from China, banning them won’t stop that.
That’s a nonsense nonargument. If the bulk of purchases are already illegal, then there’s no harm in banning what is clearly a harmful item.
Except this ban bans non-disposable vapes. The disposable ones were already banned and were just sold under the counter without any regulation, like they’ll continue to be.
Good point, I haven’t thought of that.
They also cause popcorn lung, at least the flavoured variety.
They do not. It was suggested that ones with flavour containing diacetyl could cause popcorn lung. However, cigarettes contain a lot more diacetyl, and popcorn lung is not one of the many health risks of smoking. There is some anecdotal connection between diacetyl and popcorn lung, but far from a scientific consensus.
I seem to recall it being connected to Vitamin E oil being used as an adjunct.
“We know cigars are literally inhaling death, but this thing is marginally better than a cigar, so it’s all good”
Not a very good argument.
This is no longer true.
All forms of inhalation of substances which aren’t air causes damage to the lungs and throat.
The steam from coffee damages your lungs and throat, I never knew that. Are you sure about that?
What about aroma molecules, like sniffing a flower or perfume?So I attempted to look up the effects of smelling flowers on the lungs for science.
Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) the first few scientific results were about essential oils, the remaining results were just about smell sensitivities.
The interesting thing though, is that this study nebulized people (very small study) with essential oils and found out that they had better running performance afterward.
All this to say, you couldn’t pay me enough to do that lol
I applaud your research efforts. I learned some interesting stuff!
Mr. pedantic loves raising pointless nonarguments. Nobody likes mr. pedantic. Don’t be like mr. pedantic, kids.
Unless you’re functionally illiterate, it should be plentifully obvious that I meant particulate substances not expected to be naturally found in the air.
Alright, Mr Black-and-white. Ozone is naturally found in air, and is toxic, as is methane and any other number of organic particles that are released by natural processes.
Apart from your inaccurate use of language, you also made an unsupported assertion. I don’t believe you’re correct.
This just reminded me that I saw an advertisement for some kind of “flavored air” device at gas station yesterday, lol.
It was called Popcorn Lung because it was caused by a specific chemical used in early Popcorn
flavored vapes. That is not a condition caused by all vapes, and the chemical that caused it is no longer used for obvious reasons.Edited for the pedantic.
It was actually called popcorn lung because it was a condition suffered by workers at prepackaged popcorn factories. Similar to black lung in coal mines.
They are an excellent and well understood harm reduction measure compared with smoking.
In a true dichotomy they are the far better option. Unfortunately they were/are attracting new smokers. The rate of teenage smoking had been plummeting for decades and was only at a couple of percent - until vapes became popular and reversed about two decades of progress.
There’s an even better harm reduction measure: not smoking at all.
Don’t take any drugs, wish them away. Failing that, start a war on drugs. Prosecute the war for decades with nothing to show for your efforts aside from a pile of bodies and organised crime.
'murican much?
Oh, piss off.
Oof, someone’s angry because they didn’t get their oral fixation!
That sounds unhygienic, so I don’t think I will
Yes but unless they ban cigarettes first, banning vapes will likely just have a negative effect
I was just wondering in my pea sized brain how making things illegal in the past has worked out… hrrmmm
Sometimes it works out great (banning guns in Australia for most people), other times it’s terrible (banning alcohol in America).
But in general, vapes are shit and should be banned. No issues there. This producer will soon be blocked pretty easily.
Notice my next comment clarifying that I am talking about mind altering substances. You may think vapes are shit but they wouldn’t be around if people didn’t like them plus no major second hand or terrible smell like traditional cigarettes homie.
Also cigarettes in Australia. They’re not banned, obviously, they’re just taxed so high that hardly anyone smokes them anymore. I’m probably a bit sheltered, but I’m genuinely surprised when I see someone smoking an actual cigarette now.
Your brain is pea sized indeed, because any nominal amount of wondering should make you realize it has to be taken on a case by case basis. Otherwise we should just make everything legal, no?
This is going to blow your mind but I believe all mind altering substances should be legal and available to purchase if you are 21 years of age. This takes money away from the black market organizations and can help fund rehabilitation facilities/drug education/college scholarships.
People should be able to kill themselves as well if they choose to.
I’m willing to go to war against this vape seller.
Given what a pack of absolute shit cunts Australia has been towards NZ in recent years, I fully support any company that wants to make life difficult for the Australian authorities.
What, he’s right. We’ve been shit to NZ
Sure, but this is a fucking vape company. It is not like they are providing a valuable service to society.
Vaping literally saved my life. I tried all other smoking cessation tools including prescription medications for 10 out of the 18 years I smoked. None of it worked for me, but vaping did. It’s been over 3 years since I last smoked OR vaped. And there’s thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands of people who are in the same situation I was in.
So you can stfu about it "not being valuable to society "
Exactly. The choice is vaping or smoking, and the current movement is going to push me back to cigarettes. I’d rather vape, and I was well on my way to being able to consider myself quit when the restrictions on obtaining nicotine came into effect.
Yes there may be risks with vaping, I’m all for properly done scientific method, not funded by the ciggy lobby and would volunteer in a heart beat, because in my anecdotal experience I was getting sick far less than when I was smoking.
They definitely shouldn’t be in the hands of kids, and the disposables are absolutely a problem.
They definitely shouldn’t be in the hands of kids, and the disposables are absolutely a problem.
True, we should eliminate all disposables but especially disposable versions of electronic devices, such as for example vapes, which is even more wasteful and harmful to the environment.
As for kids getting them, that’s already illegal everywhere. What’s needed is better enforcement, not making it harder for adults to quit smoking, as I’m sure you agree.
Single use anything! Rawr etc. (I’m a nut who has carried my own water bottle, cutlery and straws for twenty+ years.)
Kids will get their hands on vapes, the same as alcohol, smokes, and so on down the list.
I’d be content with with restrictions that match cigarettes. I am not happy that access is being blocked over a bunch of whataboutisms.
sigh Same song, new lyrics.
Kids will get their hands on vapes, the same as alcohol, smokes, and so on down the list.
But nobody’s talking about making alcohol or cigarettes prescription only.
I’d be content with with restrictions that match cigarettes.
I wouldn’t. I think that keeping vapes away from children should be better enforced, but non-disposable vapes should be freely available for adults trying to quit smoking.
And, although I’m generally adamantly opposed to prohibition as a solution, I think tobacco should be completely banned.
Unlike all the drugs that ARE banned or tightly restricted, tobacco has no therapeutic or recreational benefits. There’s no upside and it’s the number one lifestyle cause of death in the world.
I am not happy that access is being blocked over a bunch of whataboutisms.
sigh Same song, new lyrics
With you there, brother/sister/other… 😮💨
Vaping is still available in Australia as an aid to quit smoking. It just requires a prescription.
Which decreases availability and increases price, both of which makes it unnecessarily difficult for people who just want to not die from smoking-related diseases.
Almost all other smoking cessation methods, which are generally much less effective, contain nicotine and are freely available without a prescription. Those aren’t legal for kids either, which is properly enforced.
To limit vape availability in this way is medically arbitrary symbolic politics and will cost many needless deaths.
Pissing off the Auzzies is a valuable contribution to society.
Hahaha I agree with both replies
