Chemist Warehouse's chain of about 550 retail pharmacies is unlikely to sell vapes over-the-counter, under Health Minister Mark Butler's plan.
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Chief operational officer Mario Tascone was sceptical about Mr Butler's proposal to down-schedule regulated vaping products so pharmacists can sell them without a prescription.
"What are the implications for liability down the track?" Mr Tascone told The Canberra Times.
"There's too many unknown questions. What if we end up finding, like cigarettes, in 30 years time people have cancers and stuff like that, who's liable?"
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, the professional body that sets standards for pharmacists - which Mr Butler claimed would work with the government on the over-the-counter plan - rejected it in a statement issued on Tuesday.
PSA national president Fei Sim said vaping "has unique harms which are different to tobacco smoking" and that the amendment "undermines the role of pharmacists as healthcare professionals".
"We cannot and do not support positioning pharmacists as retailers rather than health professionals," she said.
The Pharmacy Guild, representing the nation's more than 5800 community pharmacists, has also rejected the plan, which will go to a vote in the Senate on Wednesday morning.
The government needs two crossbenchers in addition to the Greens to pass legislation in the Senate.
Deal with the Greens
Mr Butler announced a deal with the Greens on Monday afternoon to down schedule nicotine vapes products under the the Poisons Standard, which currently requires a GP prescription for nicotine vapes to be legally sold, and ensure people are not fined for personal use.
Greens leader Adam Bandt told ABC radio on Tuesday that the Greens deal would mean vapers could "walk down the street with a Rock Princess or a Lush Ice and know that it's not a crime".
The Coalition announced on Tuesday that, if elected, it would legalise vapes to be sold in stores under a "strictly regulated retail model for vaping products under the TGA", with the products to be taxed, a position first put forward by the Nationals.
Professional body contradicts Health Minister Mark Butler
Mr Butler told reporters in Canberra that pharmacists "have been selling vapes for some considerable time" under the prescription-only model legislated by former Coalition health minister Greg Hunt.
"The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia ... has long had clinical guidelines about the way in which pharmacists should have those discussions with their customers," Mr Butler said, pointing out that the society is "the professional body for pharmacists, not the business lobby [in reference to the Guild]."
"We will continue to work with the PSA, the professional body, on updating those guidelines to reflect any changes the Senate sees fit to make over the course of this week," he said.
But the PSA contradicted this.
"Vaping is a public health crisis," Associate Professor Sim said.
"The amendment - if it was to pass the Senate in its current form - asks pharmacists to prescribe unapproved, unregulated, untested vaping products to the public.
"Pharmacist Only Medicines are pharmacist-prescribed medicines, which include a consultation with patients to establish therapeutic need. Not having patient information recorded in the prescribing of nicotine-containing vapes is inconsistent with the normal provision of healthcare.
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The federal government has no plan to pay pharmacists a fee to sell vapes over-the-counter, but its amended legislation would require them to have conversations with vapers to assess whether the product is appropriate and refer them to alternatives.
Pharmacists would be covered by their usual professional indemnity insurance.
Health Minister says 'TGA surveillance' will ensure vapes meet standards
Mr Butler said the government bill would ensure that "the only vapes that will be able to be sold in pharmacies will have to have obtained a permit from the Office of Drug Control and will have to be able to demonstrate, through surveillance by the TGA, that those vapes comply with standards set by the TGA".
"There is not currently a vape on the Register of Therapeutic Goods. But we have put in place for the first time very clear standards, overseen by the Therapeutic Goods Administration, overseen by the Office of Drug Control, to ensure that the vapes that are being sold through pharmacies comply with the strictest possible standards."
The Poisons Standard is a legislative instrument that can either be amended by the Therapeutic Goods Administration or the government.
The government bill would amend the standard without a need for the TGA to assess the change.
While liquid nicotine is classified as a schedule 7 dangerous poison, when used as a therapeutic product aid quitting smoking it is treated as a schedule 4 prescription only medicine.
The change would make it a schedule-three pharmacist-only medicine.