We had the venue booked from 1PM to 6PM so we arrived just before 12 to get everything setup…

By 1PM we were ready to roll with signage placed in two locations for ATACA Associated Vendors, 15 different zero nicotine flavours were ready to try, a selection of different PV’s from a JiB to a Jazz Cartopipe and handmade Dragon Pipe were on display, various cartomizers to sample and finally Eric from EPM had his latest gear on display and for sale.

We had long time vapers comparing variable voltage/wattage systems and the fine points of juice making, mixing with the curious who had come to try vaping for the first time.

A special thanks needs to go out to the team from Electronic Cigs Victoria for fielding as many questions from the curious as I did (if not more) while I was also running the “Try Me” area, selling starter kits and generally trying not to lose my mind in the chaos.

Although we don’t have solid numbers on how many people passed through we can tell you that we sold over 25 “Try Me” tickets and by the time the lottery was drawn there were between 40 and 50 people crammed into our cozy lounge. At 5:15PM we drew the winners of both the door prizes and the major prizes.

Door prizes:
3 x disposable mini kits
1 x SmokTech basic 510 kit
3 x 18650 basic tube mods
3 x CherryVapes Ming tips

Major prizes:
1st: eGo C Starter Kit
2nd: Joye 510 Starter KIt
3rd: SmokTech 510 Starter Kit

So I’ll risk repeating myself by saying the day was a massive success. We have raised enough funds to keep ATACA ticking away and start focusing on becoming an incorporated association. Unfortunately the venue was booked from 6PM onwards so we weren’t able to stay later into the night. Over the coming months we all look at running a semi-regular meetup at Olinda while searching for a larger, more central venue for the next VapeFest (and from the crowd we got we’ll most certainly need it!)

Special thanks again to: VapeBar and JuiceWhore for providing prizes and sample stock, the team at E-Cig Warehouse and Electronic Cigs Victoria for attending in person and helping to herd the crowds, and Eric from EPM for providing answers to the really technical questions and demonstrationing his “Board by JiB” mods and customized tank systems.

Finally the biggest thank you goes to AussieVapers.com for growing the Australian vaping community to the point where an event like this was possible in the first place.

How many times have you had to explain to somebody what you are doing?

If you use a tank mod, how many times have you explained that, no, it’s not a bong?

ATACA has put together an educational brochure that you can hand somebody next time you are asked, instead of having try and remember everything yourself.

It’s a trifold brochure that has been designed so that you can print just one side for the basic information, or both sides for the full story.

ATACA Educational Brochure

I’d like to make a extend a “formal” invitation to all Australian vendors to consider joining ATACA’s Associated Vendor program, and ask if there is anybody I haven’t asked that would like to contribute samples or anything else to help with VapeFest.

Our vendor requirements can be viewed here: http://ataca.org.au/?page_id=279

These requirements have been crafted to ensure good business practice while not placing any unneccessary burden on the operations of each vendor. Should anybody be interested but is concerned with any particular requirement let me know and we can discuss it further.

Thank you again to everybody who has contributed so far!

Setting up ATACA has been a steep learning curve for me. I’ve learnt a lot over the past few months, and I’ll be the first to admit I’ve made a few mistakes along they way.

World Vaping Day is an event to celebrate the amazing success of electronic cigarettes across the globe by getting people off the smokes. Melbourne VapeFest is our local effort to expose more people to these smoking alternatives and help spread the word.

It was never about marketing and finding more customers, but somewhere along the way that is exactly what started to happen.

So I’m here to announce some changes to the way VapeFest will be run:

• Products will be made available on the day for people to try and hopefully decide to buy to give a vaping a real go.
• Attendee’s on the day will be directed to the ATACA website and linked forums for help and not specific vendors.
• All products (including juices) on the day will be non-branded. Just simple bottles with the flavour marked (zero nicotine of course).
• Any vendor who wants to assist with products for the day may do so, but specific vendor branding is not allowed. All sales for the day will be handled by ATACA, with proceeds (or unsold product) returned to the vendor the following week.
• Each sponsor can provide an A4 poster advertising their business, and these will all be displayed together.
• Associated Vendors may provide business cards. These will be given away as a pack (one card from each vendor, plus an ATACA flyer).
  This will only be done if we have at least 3 Associated Vendors by VapeFest
• Flyers and posters promoted VapeFest itself will be vendor logo free.

We have had a huge amount of interest from vendors so far, with devices and juices now locked in for sampling and sale on the day. But that’s not to say we can’t use more help! If you’d like to assist with VapeFest in any way, please let me know.

This also provides me with the perfect opportunity to discuss a few issues regarding our Associated Vendor program.

The Associated Vendor program exists to acknowledge Australian vendors who agree to follow a mutually agreed upon set of guidelines that establish them as a legitimate Australia business (or company) and provide peace of mind to potential customers.

The Requirements are most certainly not set in stone. Any vendor who is interested in taking part but is concerned with any of the current guidelines just needs to let me know, and we can work together to reach an agreement.

Finally, after listening to member and vendor feedback we have decided to scrape the “ratings” for vendors. Why would a customer choose to try a Bronze Vendor when their is a Gold one listed on the same page? It’s not up to ATACA to tell people who they should shop with. It’s up to us to inform people about their options, and let the market decide from there. With all that in mind, for the time being we will simply have “Associated Vendors” and leave it at that.

I hope this letter clarifies where ATACA stands, and what we’re all about. With all of that said, let’s get back to what really matters: spreading the word on most effective (and satisfying) smoking alternative in existence.

“Our Lives – Our Future”

Congratulation to the team at VapeBar for being the first Australia vendor to fully comply with our guidelines. Not only are they first Associated Vendor, they are also our first Gold Rated vendor! More vendors will be coming on board over the coming days so keep an eye open.

A few changes have been made to the site tonight, some aesthetic, some content driven:

• The site banner has been updated to include our newly approved logo, as well as two quotes to better sum up ATACA’s core goal – the open availability of safer nicotine products in the Australian market.
• New “Community Links” section with links to Tobacco Harm Reduction related websites, forums, blogs and FaceBook pages.
• The launch of our Associated Vendor section including the finalised Requirements.
• Member Requirements page has been renamed Support ATACA with information on the 4 ways you can support ATACA today.
• Separation of our Full Member list and our General Mailing List. It is now possible to sign up to the Mailing List without being a Full Member.

Plans are currently underway for the first ever Melbourne VapeFest with some big news to be annouced over the next few days. Until then…

I invite everybody to add their opinions to these discussion pages and together we can spread the word on electronic cigarettes and more importantly, save lives.

“It’s Our Lives – It’s Our Future”

AussieVapers.com – The Original Australia E-Cigarette Community opened it’s virtual doors on the 29th of March 2010. This was around the same time that Australia’s first and longest running e-cig retailer, E-Cigz Australia, opened for business.

Back in August 2010 the forum statistics were 176 topics and 1939 posts. Since then AVF has grown to over 350 members, almost 4000 threads, 15 sub-forums for specific vendors, and is rapidly approaching 50,000 posts. That’s a lot of vaping talk!

More forums, blogs or web pages are generally a good idea. The more people talking about e-cigs, the faster the word will spread, and the more lives that will be saved in the long term.  However when you bring a group of people together there are bound to be some that disagree. That’s just human nature. These disagreements have been ongoing for sometime now and are unable to be put to rest by certain individuals involved. Hence was born an new forum that appears to be trying to trade off the good name the members and administrators of AussieVapers.com have built up over the last (nearly) 2 years. Their name might be the same, but they are not associated with ATACA in anyway at this time. We hope one day they will put their personal issue aside and work towards assisting people to find alternatives to tobacco and pharmacy NRT products.

ATACA is not in the position to comment over the events that led up to this, however we felt it was important to clarify that aussievapers.com is the original, and still the largest, Australian “vaping” community. Moderation there is fair and “trolling” is kept to a minimum. This is the place to direct the curious or the beginner. Don’t be fooled by imitations with an axe to grind.

Until we can find a way forward that is acceptable to Australian health departments allowing the local sale of such products, let’s hope it stays that way.

But nicotine can fall under other Schedules depending on it’s usage. This is where it gets tricky.

Schedule 6 (like Eucalyptus oil) is when concentrations are at or below 3% (30mg/ml) and for veterinary purposes.

Schedule 4 is for “aid in withdrawal from tobacco smoking” as gum, lozenges or spray.

Schedule 2 is for “aid in withdrawal from tobacco smoking” via inhalation.

Ironically tobacco packed for smoking is exempt (they will claim this is due to State and Federal laws on cigarette manufacturing and sale) and smokeless tobacco isn’t mentioned at all, yet can be imported if you are willing to take the risk of getting hit with $400+ in tobacco excise. This is despite the fact such “sin” taxes are meant to offset the damage caused by usage, yet Swedish Snus in particular has been proven to have the same risk as a “non-smoker” and there is no justifcation for such massive taxation of these “safer” products.

The last committee meeting decided that the Schedule 2 listing was intended for the Nicorette Inhaler, and since research shows this is majority absorbed by the mouth area, it should be moved to S4 and the S2 listing should be scrapped.

They also decided that eJuice with nicotine for therapeutic use should be considered S4. This is where it gets REALLY tricky.

Schedule 4 requires a doctors prescription. This means (in theory) if you get a script from your GP you should be able to legally import and use eJuice with nicotine. Unless it’s majority absorbed by the oromuscal, then it’s exempt (no prescription required). Their is evidence that this is how e-cigs work, but since the patient says lung inhalation, that’s how they claim it works. This means you should be able to import using the Personal Import Scheme (access to unapproved medicine or therapeutic goods) at a maximum of 3 months use per order or 15 months use over 12 months of orders. This is the LEGAL stance. This is covered by the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989.

POLICY is a whole different matter. The State Health Departments and the Therapeutic Goods Administration claim to follow the advise of the Scheduling Secretariat and committee decisions, but all refuse to acknowledge that e-cigs can be used as a therapeutic product. They CLAIM that it’s all Schedule 7 and therefore illegal.

Personally, I think it’s a case of nobody willing to stick their neck out and be the one who said “yes you can import it”.

Slightly off topic, the TGA claims that e-cigs can’t be therapeutic since they aren’t on the Australian Registry of Therapeutic Goods. But if they were, they could be sold locally and wouldn’t require the Personal Import Scheme. They also say you can import Nicorette Nasal Spray despite this not being on the Register since it’s an “approved NRT“. Yet nobody can explain to us how a product can be approved when not on the Registry – as they take the exact opposite stance on e-cigs.

Finally, they claim you can’t import an unbranded solution that is nearly chemically identical to nicotine spray, even if used for the same purpose. That’s interesting, as nicotine spray and eJuice are *almost* the same thing. Nicotine spray just has a few extra chemicals not present in eJuice, but the base is exactly the same (PG, VG, nicotine and flavoring).

As a final note I did try and discuss this with Megan Howard at the Victorian Drugs and Poisons Unit. Despite the fact she is ON THE COMMITTEE BOARD and would therefore we will aware of the Schedule 4 decision, she refused to acknowledge this and actually hung up on me when I pushed the matter. This is a perfect example of what we current face with our (what would appear to be) rather useless and badly informed Government departments.

I will forward a copy of this summary to various different departments for comment and will post any follow-up received.

Nicotine is a Schedule 7 Poison in Australia and therefore illegal to possess or use. That’s fair enough since pure nicotine (1000 milligrams per millilitre) is deadly with just 2 drops. Nicotine in tobacco products for smoking is excluded from this restriction since it’s at “safe” levels (around 1mg per cigarette).

eJuice with nicotine is usually around 1-10% nicotine (1mg – 100mg per ml) and is just as safe to handle and use with an e-cig as eucalyptus oil is in a steam inhaler.

The current legal framework allows nicotine for human therapeutic use (quitting smoking) if used by inhalation, to be a Schedule 2 Poison. If it could be sold legally in Australia (it can’t) it would be Pharmacy Only. However this recognition would confirm the legality for Australians to import their own eJuice with nicotine to help them give up smoking.

The bads news is that none of the Health Departments across Australia will recognise that e-cigs can indeed be a smoking cessation product.

The AUSSIE ASH campaign to get this recognition was started by SMOKESCREEN.info. Read more about it here.

ATACA will shortly be taking over the operations of the AUSSIE ASH campaign and evolving it from it’s current “individual contact” form into a better organised group effort.

Stay tuned for more details!