The Dairy and Business Owners’ Group has warned MPs considering the Smokefree Amendment Bill that it has potential to kill more than just the smokers who are being put off vaping.

“How could 200,000 fewer daily smokers from vaping be a bad thing?” asked Ash Parmar the Group’s Vice-chair.

“This government hasn’t learnt from the smokes, which gram for gram, is worth more than silver.  Locking away vapes in general trade means we’ll face young and increasingly violent criminals going for the vapes and smokes with equal gusto.  We end up hurt, or much worse.

“This Bill will also force thousands of dairies to apply to become specialist vape retailers.  We don’t want that.  The vast majority of dairies don’t want that, but that’s the outcome from banning the display of mint, menthol and tobacco vapes.  Come on.  Banning ‘mint, menthol and tobacco’ display?

“It’s not as if dairies haven’t been 96.7% compliant in the first six months of 2024, or that ASH found almost all dairies in 2023 sold responsibly.

“We also warned the committee their plan for refillable-only vapes is totally reckless.

“Not only will toddlers end up being poisoned, just when the regulations we have has slashed this, but youth who now get 80% of their vapes from each other, will start home-baking e-juices using TikTok recipes. That’s the future with refillable-only vapes as New Zealand has never had a case of EVALI.   

“The worst thing we see is that smokers are only hearing a constant message that its safer to keep smoking. We’ve gone overboard on teens vaping behind the bike sheds and forgotten about 284,000 daily smokers.

“Kids experiment but what about the 154,000 who smoked dope last year? That’s way worse but gets zero attention.

“If vaping is as addictive as some claim, then why is teen vaping falling here, crashed in the USA but exploded in Australia?  How could that be given all the claims Australia had better regulations?  Australia instead put the Comancheros in charge of vaping and smoking.

“And what the government did last week with replaceable batteries has hit most of the popular vapes. We’ve been reliably told that Vuse and Alt products have been pulled from service stations.  To avoid boosting smoking we asked the Committee to get this reversed urgently.

“Our submission has Official Data from Ministry of Health/HealthNZ on hospitalisations, comparative ACC data, Ministry of Education standdown data and a heap more.  Unlike others that make unfounded claims we back ours up with facts,” Mr Parmar said.

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