New legislation bans e-cigarette sales to children

Health Minister Jillian Skinner said the new bill helps protect young people against the harmful health effects of smoking.

“This is a comprehensive piece of legislation which will guard against the re-normalisation of smoking among the young, as it has the potential to undermine decades of successful anti-smoking efforts in NSW,” Mrs Skinner said.

A bill to amend the Public Health (Tobacco) Act ensuring restrictions relating to the sale to minors, display and advertising of e-cigarettes are similar to other tobacco products.

The key points of the new e-cigarettes legislation are:

• it is an offence to sell e-cigarettes and accessories to minors
• it is an offence for adults to buy e-cigarettes and accessories on behalf of minors
• it is an offence to smoke e-cigarettes in cars with children under 16 present
• police have the power to seize an e-cigarette that is in the possession of a person under the age of 18
• new restrictions now apply to the display and advertising of e-cigarettes
• a person may not operate or use a vending machine that dispenses e-cigarettes on behalf of a minor
• e-cigarette vending machines may be located only in limited areas, such as licensed premises

In NSW, the sale of e-cigarettes to a minor is subject to the same maximum penalty as the sale of a tobacco product to a minor - that is, $11,000 for an individual or $55,000 for a corporation and, for repeat offenders, $55,000 for an individual and $110,000 for a corporation.

Penalties for all other offences relating to e-cigarettes will also be in line with existing penalties for tobacco products.

More information

Visit NSW Government Health Tobacco Strategy website