News on October 14th, according to foreign news reports, Australian industry experts and e-cigarette suppliers circumvent notifications of online e-cigarette devices made in Australia by selling on the black market.

The owner of one of Australia's largest e-cigarette stores claimed that the recent crackdown aimed at curbing nicotine e-cigarettes while allowing smokers to obtain products to help them quit smoking actually backfired and helped the black market flourish.

On October 1, Australia’s nationwide e-cigarette law changes took effect, making it a criminal offence to import e-cigarettes, pods and liquids containing nicotine from overseas without a valid prescription.

In all states except South Australia, it is already illegal to own nicotine e-cigarette products without a prescription, which creates a gap between domestic rules and import laws.

Max Fichkin, who runs The Steamery in Sydney, said the law would not prevent commercial suppliers from smuggling large quantities of goods into Australia.

He said that there has always been a black market, and the more the government tries to suppress it through legislation, the more prosperous the black market will be. Tobacco merchants, milk bars, and corner shops sell them under the counter. If you search for keywords on Gumtree or Facebook Marketplace, black market sellers will deliver nicotine e-cigarette products to your home.

Before October, Australians were allowed to import nicotine e-cigarettes for up to three months-although in most jurisdictions, it is illegal to own these products once they arrive.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) and the Australian Border Force (ABF) now play a vital role in monitoring illegal imports of e-cigarettes and e-cigarette liquids containing nicotine.

Mr. Fichkin said that Chinese e-cigarette manufacturer HQD announced last year that they had successfully imported about 250,000 e-cigarettes into the country, despite the pre-existing laws prohibiting commercial quantities.

He questioned the ability of Australian government agencies to deal with the large numbers of nicotine porters pushing products through busy ports.

He said: TGA and ABF wanted to stop these shipments, but only one company successfully delivered 250,000 disposable e-cigarettes within a month. With an unprecedented number of imports entering the country, where do they obtain resources to block suppliers and demand prescriptions?

After increased penalties earlier this month, those who sell e-cigarettes containing nicotine can now be fined up to $1,650 or six months in jail - or both.

Despite the risks, Mr. Fitchkin believes that black market sellers will not be deterred.

"The increase in fines is small. The profit far exceeds the cost. I have not seen the daily income of selling disposable e-cigarettes in the corner store is less than $1,600, which is a profitable area.

Although Mr. Fichkin believes that disposable e-cigarettes are an important tool to help smokers quit smoking, he said that the new regulations put legal e-cigarette shops that are more conducive to helping quitters at a disadvantage.

He said: Due to disposable items, the Taiwanese industry is currently in a difficult situation. Many people start using disposables—the most common nicotine concentration is 50 mg—and then switch to legal e-cigarettes to gain flexibility in the amount of nicotine they smoke—decreasing as they quit.

"But now we are at a disadvantage because we cannot import nicotine, which makes it difficult to achieve the goal of helping customers quit smoking."

Although it is still possible to sell nicotine-free flavored liquids, in Australia, prescription holders now have only two ways to obtain nicotine e-cigarette products; import them from pharmacies or from overseas websites.

Prescriptions can only be written by one of the 80 authorized prescribers or doctors approved under TGA's Special Visit Plan B.

The authorized prescriber of nicotine e-cigarette products must be a general practitioner registered with the Therapeutic Goods Administration. A prescription can be obtained from one of more than 30,000 general practitioners and then ordered from overseas websites according to the personal import plan.

However, Mr. Fichkin said that general practitioners have the lowest level of education on the use of smoking cessation products, which highlights the importance of enabling specialists to provide nicotine through the legal industry.

"The increase in disposables will make the supply of nicotine a bigger topic in Australia," he said. "This topic should be about how the Australian government will monitor its use-because it will help legalize it and help reduce harm to smokers."

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