Serpentine’s Dr Brian Walker MLC has slammed Labor’s ‘knee-jerk’ anti-vaping laws, and suggested an alternate solution that “follows science rather than the hysteria”.
Speaking on the day that federal regulations which limit vape sales to pharmacies came into force, he explained that the move was riddled with unintended consequences.
“More restrictions on vaping mean only one thing – more tobacco use, and consequentially, more deaths,” the Legalise Cannabis WA MP said.
“Vaping has been shown – not by me, but by Public Health England – to be up to 95 percent safer than smoking.
“New Zealand and other western countries have built upon that science, and have successfully adopted vaping as part of their quit arsenal.
“Here in Australia however, and in Western Australia in particular, the government has chosen fear over facts.”
Dr Walker announced the first in what he explained would be a series of funding commitments over the coming months, in this instance $2m towards a positive vaping education campaign, and a suite of sympathetic regulations which would allow small, family-run stores to continue to sell vaping equipment and non-nicotine vapes.
All would be able to be funded, he said, after the legalisation of cannabis which would, at a conservative estimate, yield a $1.25B boost to government finances over the lifetime of a four-year parliament.
“We want to see the revenue from the legalisation of cannabis used to improve the lives of ordinary people, whether they partake of cannabis or not,” he said.
“The Legalise Cannabis Party here in Western Australia stands shoulder-to-shoulder with ordinary Australians who want to continue to have a choice about their own bodies and their own health.
“Prohibition doesn’t work. It never has.”
