Australia plans to restrict vape sales to pharmacies from next week

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia plans to outlaw the sale of vapes outside pharmacies from next week under some of the world’s toughest restrictions on electronic cigarettes, the health minister said on Monday. “The Greens do not support prohibition, that is why we have successfully secured changes to this legislation to ensure that vapes remain out of the hands of kids, but adults can access them via a pharmacy,” Greens health spokesperson Jordon Steele-John said in a statement. “The Senate’s expectation that community pharmacies become vape retailers and vape garbage collectors is insulting,” the guild said in a statement. Michael Bonning, a spokesman for the Australian Medical Association, the nation’s peak doctors’ group, said the new law would create a “seismic shift in how accessible vapes are.” “These are world-leading reforms that doctors and all health professionals have pushed for,” Bonning told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “Australia will continue to be looked at as a leader in tobacco and nicotine control,” Bonning added.