Holy smoke! WTF is up with Australia's vaping laws?!

Holy smoke! WTF is up with Australia's vaping laws?!

THE Government has come under renewed pressure to change laws that ban supplying nicotine for e-cigarettes, as one politician conducted a bizarre stunt.

Crossbench senator Cory Bernardi is taking a stand on the issue, spending his Valentine’s Day taking a protest bus called “Vape Force One” for a lap of Parliament House in Canberra.

The senator claimed the Government’s prohibition doesn’t stack up with health evidence, as he jumped into the driving seat of a van plastered with pro-vaping messages and packed with volunteers.

“The Government’s position is illogical,” Senator Bernardi said today. “Vaping is a much safer way for people to satisfy their nicotine addiction and cravings.”

Many public health experts are concerned about the impact wide-scale use of vaping devices might have on tobacco consumption in the broader community.

The Government also had quality and safety concerns regarding e-cigarettes and has resisted calls to reverse its position on the issue.

“The overwhelming medical advice and evidence is that it’s likely to lead to the uptake of smoking and we cannot support that,” a spokesman for Health Minister Greg Hunt told AAP.

That view was consistent with the concerns of the Therapeutic Goods Administration, Australia’s Chief Medical Officer and the National Health and Medical Research Council.

“We will continue to follow the advice of the medical authorities,” the spokesman said.

But Senator Bernardi said his stunt was a move to break the cycle of nicotine addiction.

“This is a way to do it that does less damage to individual’s health,” he said.