Children using vapes containing nicotine and vaping at school has sparked concerns among Territorian’s.
With representatives from the Education and Health Department being the first to address a parliamentary committee investigating vaping habits in the Northern Territory, they’re now inviting locals to have their say on the issue.
The committee will be looking into the use of vaping among children, the health impacts of the habit, the use of the devices in helping people quit smoking, and regulatory responses and methods of discouraging vaping.
Committee Chair Brent Potter says they’ll be taking Territorian’s opinions into consideration before taking the inquiry further.
“There are a lot of people on either side of the fence of the argument on this,” he says.
“I want to re-iterate to Territorian’s that we’re going to take a very scientific approach to this and we’re going to gather all the evidence available and we’re going to listen to everyone’s point of view, and we’ll go from there in terms of our submission into parliament.”
Mr Potter says although there are Federal regulations around nicotine vaping, people in the NT are still getting their hands on the devices without knowing what’s actually in them.
“Many of the electronic vaporizers that don’t advertise they’re containing nicotine have actually in some instances contained nicotine,” he says.
“There’s no regulation outlining to people what is in the fluid when you believe you’re buying a non-nicotine vaporizer.”
People can make written submissions via the committee’s website up until the 26th of May.
