E-cigarettes only on prescription in Australia

Nicotine becomes a medicine

Here’s one of the big moves coming in 2021. In Australia, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has announced the provisional classification of nicotine as a prescription-only medicine. The proposal is currently being reviewed in detail by Maurice Swanson, chief executive of the Australian Council on Smoking and Health. He has encouraged the TGA to “continue to ignore the noisy lobbying of organisations with commercial conflicts of interest”. While online orders will still be possible under the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989, prescriptions will still be required. However, a TGA advisory committee has recommended that patches and gum be exempted from this restriction, and that they will remain available over the counter.

Help to quit or gateway to smoking?

The role of e-cigarettes as a cessation aid is not yet clearly defined. For a long time, anti-smoking activists have been concerned that they could become a gateway to smoking, particularly among adolescents and young people. This hypothesis seems to have been verified by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Maurice Swanson specifies that there is "growing evidence that e-cigarettes cause damage to the heart, lungs and developing brain of adolescents and growing evidence of high levels of e-cigarette use by young people in countries that have allowed them to be more freely available and promoted."

Evidence of the dangers of vaping

Dr Miranda Ween, from the Royal Adelaide Hospital Pulmonary Research Laboratory and the University of Adelaide Medical School, said vaporised nicotine can have effects on lung immune cells. “It makes sense that as a poison, this high concentration nicotine should only be handled by qualified and trained professionals such as compounding pharmacists. I think there needs to be a concentration limit because the products that are very popular overseas currently contain 59mg/ml of nicotine, well above what is found in tobacco cigarettes.”

What about other tobacco products?

Changes could also affect heated tobacco, chewing tobacco, snuff and new nicotine products. The consultation is open until 6 November 2020.