Release: Health System Chaos Looms As Greg Hunt’s Vaping Prescription Plan Bombs With GPs

Only 71 doctors across Australia have signed up to be authourised prescribers of vaping products ahead of the Federal Government’s October 1 deadline, setting up a chaotic scenario in GP surgeries around the country in the coming months as more than half a million vapers try to get access to a product that is a normal part of life in countries like the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

With Australia’s health system under unprecedented strain as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt is proceeding with his plan to force Australia’s 500,000-plus vapers to visit GP surgeries to get a prescription that will allow them to import the product under what will be among the strictest regulations in the world.

New data from the Therapeutic Good Administration reveals only a tiny number of GPs have applied to be approved prescribers of vaping products. A total of just 71 doctors are registered, including only four in Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales; only one in the whole of Western Australia, and none in Tasmania and the ACT.

People who have successfully quit smoking using vapes, as they were encouraged to do by decades of government campaigns, may now be forced to return to expensive and unhealthy cigarettes which are increasingly supplied in Australia by criminal syndicates on the black market.

Legalise Vaping Australia campaign director Brian Marlow said: “This is an unnecessary disaster inflicted by poor policy.

“Right when we are at the peak of pressure on the health system from the Delta strain of COVID-19, hundreds of thousands of Australians are likely to be heading in to GP surgeries looking for prescriptions.

“How the Health Minister Greg Hunt thinks this is a good idea is incomprehensible. Not only is this a terrible policy, but the fact that only 71 doctors across Australia are registered to be involved shows it has been mishandled by the minister. 

“It is an appalling waste of resources at a time when Australians are pulling together and making sacrifices through lockdowns to keep pressure off the health system.

“The Health Minister should move immediately to correct this. Vaping products should be made available over the counter at retail outlets on production of age verification as is the case in other sensible countries that are supporting smokers to quit effectively.”

Legalise Vaping Australia campaigns for making vape devices and liquids available in a safe and effective regulatory environment.

For more information on Legalise Vaping Australia: https://www.legalisevaping.com.au/

For more information on the TGA authorise prescribers: https://www.tga.gov.au/authorised-prescribers-unapproved-nicotine-vaping-products