Reactions on Twitter towards Australia's proposed import restriction on nicotine vaping products: a thematic analysis

Abstract

Abstract Objective: In June 2020, the Australian Government announced that personal importation of nicotine vaping products (NVP) would be prohibited, pending a 12‐month classification and regulation review by the Therapeutic Goods Administration. This brief report examines the themes of responses on Twitter to this announcement. Methods: Simple random sampling was used to retrieve tweets containing keywords from 19 to 26 June 2020. Tweets were manually coded and descriptive statistics calculated for themes and policy position. Results: The vast majority of the 1,168 tweets were anti‐policy. Themes included: criticism towards government (59.8%), activism against NVP restriction (38%), potential adverse consequences (30.8%) and support for NVP restriction (1.4%). Tweets that identified potential adverse consequences of NVP restriction cited: smoking relapse for individuals currently using NVPs (75.6%); the impact of policy enforcement (8.6%); illicit market (8.3%); panic buying (3.6%); difficulty obtaining prescriptions (2.8%); and impacts on NVP businesses (2.8%). Conclusion: Tweets predominately objected to the policy announcement. Approximately three‐quarters of tweets that cited potential adverse consequences of the policy mentioned smoking relapse as their primary concern. Implications for public health: User‐generated content on Twitter was primarily used to lobby against the proposed policy, which was subsequently amended.

Keywords

• e‐cigarette
• vaping
• nicotine
• Australia
• attitudes
• regulation