A Tale of Two Countries: New Zealand vs Australia

New Zealand has emerged as a global leader in Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR), achieving a remarkable decline in smoking rates in recent years, while also successfully controlling and reducing underage vaping. This success story is largely a result of the government endorsing a pragmatic approach that embraces Vapour Products as a better alternative for adult smokers who wish to continue nicotine use, while enforcing the regulation of the category in the right way, to mitigate underage access. 

The New Zealand government’s approach focuses on harm reduction, acknowledging the reality that some adult smokers may choose not to quit. The government has stated that its intent is to "support smokers to switch to regulated products that are significantly less harmful than smoking."  By providing a choice and making lower-risk profile alternatives, like vaping products, available and accessible for adult smokers, it aimed to encourage them away from cigarettes. So far, this strategy has proved remarkably effective.

A Beacon of Hope For A Smokeless Future

A smokefree future is within reach for New Zealand. It is a success story that offers a glimmer of hope for other countries wanting to transition to a smokefree future. By adopting a pragmatic approach that embraces THR and lower-risk profile products such as Vapour Products other countries can potentially replicate its success.

Australia: Restricted Access

Meanwhile, Australia has taken a very different path in regulating Vapour Products. While nicotine Vapour Products have never been legal for adult retail sale in Australia, since October 2021, Australia introduced a severely restricted prescription-only access model. This model requires adult consumers to obtain a doctor’s prescription which would then only allow them to legally purchase Vapour Products from a pharmacy.

According to the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Australia is the only country in the world to restrict access to nicotine Vapour Products on a prescription only basis. In 2023, the Australian government further announced the extended restrictions on importation and retail sales including non-nicotine Vapour Products and shut down the personal importation scheme. In October 2024, nicotine Vapour Products became available for adults to purchase at pharmacies without a prescription.

This over-the-counter pharmacy availability has also proved to be a failure for both harm reduction, underage access and the prevalence of the black market - where approximately only 1 out of every 1,686 vaping products bought in Australia are through a pharmacy.^19,20 Some Australian state governments have also implemented heavy penalties of up to A$32,000 and imprisonment for those in possession of unauthorised nicotine²¹, which is much more severe than the penalties for possession of small quantities of drugs such as cannabis.

Alongside punitive regulation, the public health campaigns launched by the government highlighted the dangers of vaping with graphic imagery and testimonials with the slogan “Every Vape is a Hit to Your Health”; in contrast to the pro-switching messaging of their New Zealand counterparts. Did these extreme measures work? In our opinion, this is a clear no. In 2025, there are an estimated 1.7m adult vapour consumers in Australia. Of these, an estimated 99% are using vapes from illegal sources. The smoking rate has also risen for the first time since 2005, increasing from 11.8% in 2024 to 12.1% in Q1 2025 since the vaping sales ban was introduced in mid-2024.

By 2021, New Zealand overtook Australia in terms of smoking incidence reduction rate, despite starting at a higher level of prevalence. A 2022 study using a vaping model by Levy et al. evaluated the potential impact on public health of relaxing restrictions on Vapour Products in Australia, predicting that as many as 104,200 premature deaths could be averted during the period 2017–2080 if Australia embraced Tobacco Harm Reduction by increasing adult smokers' access to these products.²² Australian experts increasingly agree that the Government’s approach to THR isn’t right. For example, when Australia moved to the pharmacy-only model in October 2024, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, a national body that represents Australia’s pharmacists, raised its concerns, stating, “it is unclear how this change will address concerns around availability of black-market vapes and organised crime.”²³  And they were right.

Organised crime has now gained a significant foothold in illicit tobacco and vapour; to such an extent that there has been a violent escalation in rival crime syndicates fighting over sales territory, resulting in more than 250 retail²⁴  store fire-bombings across Australia since January 2023. Despite the media scrutiny and calls for a Royal Commission, the Australian Government continues to deny the scale of the crisis. Even with the Australian Government committing over A$450 million to fight the illicit tobacco and vapour market since January 2024 and establishing a Federal Illicit Tobacco and E-Cigarette Commissioner in July 2024, the illicit nicotine market has continued to grow rapidly. This underscores that the current tobacco and vapour policy settings are failing.²⁵  The current situation in Australia is rapidly deteriorating, and without a fundamental shift in approach, Australia risks cementing a permanent and entrenched illicit market for tobacco and nicotine, with potentially severe consequences for public health, crime and the national economy.

Speaking about the state of the Australian market, Roy Morgan CEO Michelle Levin said “the final impact of e-cigarettes, vaping and illicit tobacco, and a raft of legislation and social reform will take some time to untangle.”²⁶