May 7, - Experts in Australia are reportedly divided over whether proposed new e-cigarette reforms will curb the rise in e-cigarette use among young Australians or fuel the trend towards smoking.

Health Minister Mark Butler announced a major crackdown on e-cigarettes this week, including a ban on popular single-use e-cigarettes and a ban on the import of over-the-counter vaping products into Australia.

Adults can only buy e-cigarettes with a prescription at pharmacies, not retail stores, and they can only be sold in plain packaging and flavor.

Butler described e-cigarettes as the biggest loophole and the number one loophole in Australian history.

'As the country's health minister, I'm just not willing to normalize this product,' he said.

The move has been welcomed by health groups such as the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), the Alcohol and Drug Foundation and the Public Health Association of Australia.

However, not everyone is convinced that the reforms will go the way the government wants.

Joe Kosterich, president of Tobacco Harm Reduction Australia, said the reforms would block the path smokers take to quit while not preventing children from accessing addictive nicotine products.

While some of these health groups are encouraging each other, he said, people who actually try to quit or who use e-cigarettes to quit will suffer.

"It's already illegal for teenagers to use e-cigarettes, you can't make it any more illegal than it already is, and if they're going to put e-cigarettes on the black market, the black market will be stronger because of these initiatives."

Dr Kosterich urged the government to rethink their prescription-based approach and consider taking the same position as New Zealand, which supports smokers switching to e-cigarettes while discouraging those who do not use tobacco products from starting them.

However, Dr Kosterich's argument was questioned by other experts, who said the measures would help stem the rise in e-cigarette use among young people.

Courtney Barnes, a researcher at Newcastle University, said that while e-cigarettes were introduced as a tool to help adults quit smoking, they had become a means of getting young people hooked on tobacco products.

While the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes are still emerging, studies have shown they can cause acute lung injury, poisoning, burns and inhalation poisoning, she said.

"In young people in particular, the risk to brain development posed by nicotine consumption (a common component in these devices) is of particular concern."

Dr Barnes believes teenagers can easily obtain illegal e-cigarettes through convenience stores, which is why they are only available in pharmacies.

According to Dr Kosterich, the decision to offer e-cigarettes only in a pharmaceutical setting is illogical because it will make them harder to obtain than regular cigarettes, which are more harmful.

He cited a 2016 report by the Royal College of Practitioners, which found that inhaling e-cigarettes was only 5% as harmful to people's health as smoking cigarettes.

"You don't need a doctor's appointment to buy cigarettes, why would you need a doctor's appointment to get a 95 percent less harmful option?" 'he said.

While e-cigarettes are important for supporting smokers who are trying to quit, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University chemistry professor Oliver Jones said it was important to note that they are not just a safe alternative to traditional cigarettes, although they are often seen.

He argues that e-cigarette products, including those that claim to contain no nicotine, often contain other ingredients.

E-cigarettes on the market have also been found to contain a variety of other potentially harmful chemicals not listed on the label, he said.

He thinks some people might be driven back to traditional cigarettes; However, the new government policy is a step in the right direction, but more needs to be done.

'I think there is strong evidence that the current approach isn't really working,' he said.

"Imposing minimum quality standards and selling e-cigarettes only in pharmacies won't solve the problem, but these measures can at least help people have confidence in the ingredients of the products they buy - as long as the rules are enforced."