Victoria bans e-cigarettes
Victoria is introducing new laws next year which will ban e-cigarettes in all areas where smoking is prohibited.
The changes will treat e-cigarettes like other tobacco products.
The laws will also prohibit children under 18 from buying them.
The legislative changes will include a ban on smoking in outdoor dining areas. That will come into effect on August 1 next year.
The ban will also apply to any food fair or organised outdoor events where there are food stalls.
Events devoted to food, like the Night Noodle Market, will be smoke free, while an outdoor festival, like Moomba, will not be subject to the ban.
However, smoking will not be allowed within 10 metres of a food stall.
Victorian Health minister Jill Hennessy said vaping was one step towards smoking.
The new laws, she said, provided some clarity for restaurants and workplaces.
"We're going to regulate them like they are a tobacco product and also make sure that we're not really using e-cigarettes as a starting point for people to get a habit to then start cigarettes and then get addicted to nicotine," Ms Hennessy told the ABC.
"We don't want e-cigarettes being used to glamorise smoking by people under 18."
She said e-cigarettes should not glamorise smoking by youngsters,
While the exact health of vaping are unclear, she said the government was being super cautious in its approach.
"In the absence of having really clear evidence about this, we've decided to take a really cautious approach," she said.
"Whilst there is some debate about whether or not e-cigarettes are useful in giving up smoking, and that's a matter that the smoking experts are not really unified on at the moment, we don't want e-cigarettes used to glamorise smoking.
"We want to give certainty to people who don't know whether or not e-cigarettes should be allowed to be used in enclosed workspaces and at restaurants, people walking through airports for example with e-cigarettes."
Quit.org.au estimates that around 4000 Victorians die every year from diseases caused by smoking.
The new laws will be introduced in Parliament this week.
by Leon Gettler, May 24th 2016
