Government denies shock smoking claim after vape ban

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7 days ago

Your web browser is no longer supported. To improve your experience update it here The federal government has rejected research that claims smoking increased among young people after vape sales were banned last year. The report noted that the legislation, passed in phases in July 2024, has demonstrably "failed to reduce overall rates of smoking and vaping". The federal government has rejected research that claims smoking increased among young people after vape sales were banned last year. (Nine) It also reported overall rates of smoking and vaping in Australia are higher now than during the second half of last year. Federal Health Minister Mark Butler today refuted the report's findings and said government-led research showed that "fewer young people are vaping and fewer young people are smoking". "I, along with everyone else, was concerned about the risk that if we shut down access to vapes, that there might be a squeezed balloon effect that resulted in young people taking up smoking cigarettes in greater numbers," Butler said. "The research I've seen from Gen Vape and from the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute indicates that's not the case." Butler said he had a "couple issues" with the Roy Morgan research released on July 1, including the fact that some of the period of research pre-dated the vape reforms. He also said it canvassed a different age cohort than the federal government's Generation Vape project, which was released alongside the Cancer Council. The Saturday Paper reported last week that an earlier version of the Roy Morgan research was "scrubbed" from the internet and a report without explicit references to government "failure" was published. Roy Morgan later restored the original version of the research. "Like much research, this press release on smoking and vaping has raised more questions than it answered," a disclaimer noted. Health Minister Mark Butler during a press conference on vaping at Parliament House in Canberra. (Dominic Lorrimer) "Roy Morgan has subsequently undertaken further analysis, which provides the historical context and more detailed data on the use of different and combined products, including illicit tobacco. "In light of this, and in the interest of transparency, below is the initial release, which includes data from 12 months to January 2024 through to 12 months to May 2025. "We have updated the charts in this release with the illicit tobacco data and removed the highlight of dates on the data figures. We have also updated the labelling of figures to reflect the full-time frame for each data point." Butler said the government did not intervene with the Roy Morgan research. The federal government today spruiked the results of its school-based OurFutures Vaping Prevention Education Program, which Butler said demonstrated "real-world outcomes in preventing youth vaping". It involved more than 5000 students at 40 schools. "Research here in Australia was showing that high school students who vaped were about five times as likely to take up smoking," Butler said. "Terrifyingly, 12-year-olds who vaped, and there was a fair number of them, were 29 times more likely to take up cigarette smoking than 12-year-olds who did not vape." Year nine student Nick told media today that the program helped him understand "the impact of vapes on our bodies and our emotional state". "I've seen a lot more about how it impacts those around you, not just yourself," Nick said. The program's findings were published in medical journal The Lancet and reported students who took part were 65 per cent less likely to have used vapes after 12 months compared to those who didn't do the course. Another 80 per cent of students said the course will help them handle vaping situations in the future. The OurFutures program will be rolled out across Australian schools until 2028. More solid findings are expected to be released next year. federal politics
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