00:00They're the little devices packing an addictive nicotine punch.
00:05It's a tool from Big Tobacco deliberately designed to recruit a new generation to nicotine
00:11addiction.
00:13Even luring the children of the Home Affairs Minister.
00:15There is a vape store just down the street from their school and I have watched my kids
00:18stand in front of that store and pick at which vape they like the look of.
00:22That is how deliberately these products are targeted at children.
00:26The free sale of nicotine vapes has been illegal for years.
00:30Regardless, the black markets thrived.
00:33That's angered now outlawed vape retailers who argue they've been doing the right thing
00:38and could have helped.
00:40Because they've never been legal to sell, you've never had shops like us actually selling
00:44them to people and educating them on the way to use them properly.
00:48Instead, there's a new sheriff of sorts.
00:50My message to organised crime is we are targeting you.
00:54The newly announced illicit tobacco and e-cigarette commissioner will help coordinate enforcement
00:59across jurisdictions and wants the public's help.
01:03We need your support through education, through dobbing in where the cigarettes or illicit
01:10cigarettes and substances are sold.
01:13Vapes are only legally available through pharmacies to people with a prescription.
01:17Sweet flavours are gone under the government's direction that only therapeutic vapes are
01:22legal.
01:23There are absolutely no products that we know of that are registered as a therapeutic product
01:27with the TGA.
01:28But the TGA says there are other avenues.
01:31There are a number of instances in which doctors and patients are able to access what we call
01:36unapproved goods through our special access or authorised prescriber schemes.
01:40The changes have been welcomed by quit advocates who say they'll lead to better health outcomes.
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