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Speaker 1: What we know locally is that hundreds of illegal vapes

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Speaker 1: have been seized from three businesses in Darwen and Palmerston.

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Speaker 1: A joint operation between NT Health, the Therapeutic Goods Administration and

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Speaker 1: NT Police investigated sixty businesses, with eight found to be

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Speaker 1: illegal vape sellers through covert purchases. Now joining us on

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Speaker 1: the line to tell us more is NT Health chief

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Speaker 1: pharmacist Samuel kateon Park. Good morning to you, Samuel, John Katie.

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Speaker 2: Great to be on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, great have you on the show. Thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for your time this morning. Now, how many of the

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Speaker 1: businesses were raided?

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Speaker 2: So of the total sixty businesses that we investigated, eight

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Speaker 2: did salvates illegally and of those eight, through discussions with

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Speaker 2: NT police, NT Health selected three businesses who are linked

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Speaker 2: to each other and make up the primary supply channel

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Speaker 2: for vapes in the Darwin Palmerston region. So we went

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Speaker 2: for the three. Anti police are looking at some others.

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Speaker 2: But out of the total of sixty, most of them

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Speaker 2: were found to be compliant with the current laws.

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Speaker 1: Wow. So with those ones that weren't and with the

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Speaker 1: three that have now sort of you know, that have

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Speaker 1: been found to be really in the midst of that

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Speaker 1: supply chain, I guess, you know, to sort of to

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Speaker 1: break it down a little. Is that going to have

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Speaker 1: a really big impact in terms of people trying to

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Speaker 1: get their hands on those illegal vapes? It sounds like

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Speaker 1: they've been dismantled.

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Speaker 2: Well, we hope that we have had a big impact.

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Speaker 2: We definitely know from some local intelligence that in the

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Speaker 2: sort of days week after the activity, there was a

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Speaker 2: definite disruption to the supply chain. Many people found that

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Speaker 2: those businesses were no longer going to sell them illegal goods,

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Speaker 2: and that some of them have started to then go

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Speaker 2: back towards seeing their doctors and their pharmacists to access safe,

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Speaker 2: legal vapes.

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Speaker 1: Samiel, Do we know how many vapes were seized?

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Speaker 2: So in this particular activity we sees a little bit

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Speaker 2: over seventeen hundreds illegal items, and then in context, over

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Speaker 2: the last sort of two and a half years, Anti

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Speaker 2: Health would have now feed upwards of around about fifteen

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Speaker 2: thousand illegal vates from a variety of businesses.

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Speaker 1: What impact, what broader impact do you think that that's

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Speaker 1: going to have as we see that real clamp down on,

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Speaker 1: you know, on illegal vapes and people being able to

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Speaker 1: get their hands on vapes.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're aiming for the impact to be that they

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Speaker 2: can't access unsafe, unregulated, illegal vates and that instead they

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Speaker 2: move towards the models which are in place in this country,

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Speaker 2: which is that you can get a vape through a prescription.

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Speaker 2: You can now also as of October first get them

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Speaker 2: through a consultation with your pharmacists. And those are products

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Speaker 2: that the Australian Government has assessed for a quality of

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Speaker 2: standard regulation that we have for all of our medicines

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Speaker 2: and medical devices in this.

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Speaker 1: Country in regard to accessing those vapes legally. Are anti

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Speaker 1: pharmacies now selling vapes to people without prescriptions following those

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Speaker 1: changes which took effect at the start of the months.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they are. We've engaged with several pharmacists across the

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Speaker 2: NT who have indicated that they are going to sell

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Speaker 2: vates as a schedule free medicine, so over the counter

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Speaker 2: with a pharmacist. And actually over the last two years

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Speaker 2: many pharmacies have been supplying vates on a prescription, with

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Speaker 2: the barrier there being getting access to a doctor who

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Speaker 2: is aware of how to prescribe faiths. But we now

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Speaker 2: think that those changes letting the pharmacist supply over the

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Speaker 2: counter will make it easier to access again safe regulated

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Speaker 2: options here.

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Speaker 1: I have had a couple of people get in contact

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Speaker 1: with us saying that they haven't been able to and

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Speaker 1: it's sort of left them a bit confused and potentially

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Speaker 1: without access to something that I suppose they're quite reliant

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Speaker 1: on or even addicted to.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, that is the unfortunate thing we see when

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Speaker 2: people are predominantly using an illegal product, and that you know,

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Speaker 2: we do have a clamp down on that. A lot

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Speaker 2: of people can still access nicotine replacement therapy, which has

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Speaker 2: been in this country for many, many years and can

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Speaker 2: help with people if they were drawing from taking nicotine. Otherwise,

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Speaker 2: the major pharmacy groups are starting to really stock them,

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Speaker 2: so if your particular pharmacist isn't, feel free to ask

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Speaker 2: them about where to get them. Most of the ones

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Speaker 2: in Darwen will point you in the direction of a

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Speaker 2: fellow pharmacist who might be able to help them out.

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Speaker 1: Samuel, I know we may not have the stats because

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Speaker 1: I guess it's this vaping. I feel like it's something that,

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Speaker 1: even though it may have been around for a while,

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Speaker 1: I feel like it's something that kind of burst onto

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Speaker 1: the scene and had a huge impact with our young

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Speaker 1: people unfortunately, and some of our really young territorians accessing vapes.

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Speaker 1: So I know that a lot of these changes are

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Speaker 1: aimed at making that much more difficult, maybe making it

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Speaker 1: less attractive for young people to start with a really

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Speaker 1: unsafe habit. I mean, do you know anecdotally if we

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Speaker 1: have had a large number of young people accessing vapes

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Speaker 1: and what kind of impact do you reckon these changes

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Speaker 1: are going to have.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, Look we don't similar to yourself, we don't

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Speaker 2: have the statistics on that across this trailia. It's very

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Speaker 2: hard to get. What we know from consultation with the

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Speaker 2: Department of Education with people in our mental health AOD

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Speaker 2: space is there are pockets of let's say, social behavior

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Speaker 2: with kids accessing and using vapes, and that might be

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Speaker 2: location specific. What this does, as you've rightly raised, is

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Speaker 2: these businesses are acting illegally and in cases selling illegally

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Speaker 2: to children. By moving this into the regulated medical model,

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Speaker 2: pharmace hats have a long history of making sure that

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Speaker 2: people are using it for themselves and not giving medicines

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Speaker 2: out to others. It encourages people who want to vape

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Speaker 2: for whatever reason, to have a safe way to do

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Speaker 2: that and really decreases opportunities for kids to get access

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Speaker 2: to them, because while it's rampant and available, people will

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Speaker 2: buy them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the thing, Samuel. In terms of the

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Speaker 1: harmful impact that vaping has on the body, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I know that this is something that we as parents

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Speaker 1: do speak to our kids about and about the harmful

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Speaker 1: effect of vaping, but just how.

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Speaker 2: Bad is ash Well, Look, the main line I think

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Speaker 2: we always try to promote is that vaping is not

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Speaker 2: perfectly safe. The safest thing to do is not to

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Speaker 2: smoke and not to vape. There are a group of

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Speaker 2: people who want to not smoke and they think that

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Speaker 2: vaping is a good way to manage that. The studies

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Speaker 2: on that are a bit mixed at the moment, but

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Speaker 2: we do know that if you have really intensive counseling

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Speaker 2: and support, vates can be used to assist smoking cessation.

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Speaker 2: But they're not a first line agent. We have first

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Speaker 2: line medicines in this country for that reason. So in

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Speaker 2: terms of people wanting to use them, the harms are there,

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Speaker 2: and the manufacturing standards for the ones that we're encountering

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Speaker 2: are almost zero. These are an unregulated product being produced

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Speaker 2: in warehouses overseas. It is not the standard we expect

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Speaker 2: for medicines in this country, and it is not the

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Speaker 2: standard that I would give to any family member. We

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Speaker 2: have products for that now in Australia. That's what we

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Speaker 2: want people to look at if they want to use

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Speaker 2: vaping for some reason.

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Speaker 1: What should people do if they are keen to quit?

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Speaker 1: I mean, what's some of the advice that you might give.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, I'm a long time pharmacist by great before

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Speaker 2: in this area. The advice has always been have a

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Speaker 2: look at when you smoke and why you smoke, and

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Speaker 2: the reasons you want to quit, Talk to your doctor

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Speaker 2: or pharmacist about the benefits of quitting, and then pick

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Speaker 2: an option that's right for you. And if you believe

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Speaker 2: that option is a vape, have a talk about strategies

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Speaker 2: to slowly decrease off it. What we don't want to

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Speaker 2: see is people continuing to live with a nicotine addiction

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Speaker 2: and they're just replacing it with vapes for the rest

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Speaker 2: of their life. We did have a really good model

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Speaker 2: for a while with people making their own concentrations of

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Speaker 2: their vapes and then they sort of could come off

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Speaker 2: that at their desire. But the problem is these illegal

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Speaker 2: disposable vapes flood at the market and they really took

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Speaker 2: that option away from people.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I really appreciate your time this morning. INT

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Speaker 1: Health Chief Pharmacist Samuel Caton Park, thanks so much for

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Speaker 1: having a chat with me this morning. All right, thank you,

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Speaker 1: Katy much, thank you, thanks so much.