Labour’s new vaping laws, “a start but don’t go far enough”

A recent anti vape store protest (Source: 1News)

The Labour Party has announced that it will crackdown on youth vaping if re-elected. The policy was announced on the 22nd of August to combat what Prime Minister Chris Hipkins called an “unacceptable” increase in youth vaping.

Hipkins notes that "vapes are far too widely available, so tougher measures are now needed."

The proposed new law includes reducing the number of vape stores in the country, capping the number at 600 nationwide.

As well as the cap on vape stores, the proposed laws also include requiring all retailers to obtain a license to sell vaping products and increases the punishment for retailers who sell vaping products to youth, increasing the potential fine to $15,000.

Labour said that it would also look to make vaping products less visible in store fronts.

However, the proposed policy is not without its opponents. Vaping Industry Association of New Zealand chairperson Jonathan Devery when speaking to Radio New Zealand said that it was a political move and continued to say that, "I think it's a desperate policy by a struggling government looking to leverage an emotive issue with parents for votes.”

This isn’t the first measure introduced by the Labour Party to combat the rise of youth vaping. In July this year, laws were introduced to ban new vape stores from opening within 300 meters of schools, as well as banning disposable vaping devices and restricting product descriptions to combat the use appealing flavours.

The National Party is also looking into how it would combat the rise of youth vaping, with leader Christopher Luxon saying on TV1’s show Breakfast, “I think we've got our settings all wrong and it's right for us to actually take a step back and actually say is there more we could be doing and I think looking at a ban is a good thing.”

Luxon said that he "really admires" the action that the Australian government has taken and that he thinks New Zealand should follow suit.

Deborah Callahan, the team leader of a primary healthcare respiratory service says that the proposed laws are a “start but don’t go far enough.”

Vaping maybe a good alternative to help people to quit smoking, but the fact is that there are people taking up vaping who weren’t smoking to begin with, which is a big problem, Callahan said.

Callahan would like the government to pay more attention to health officials and the increasing amount of research and hopes that there isn’t a crisis 20 years down the line like what has already been seen with smoking.