An Australian politician has spent Valentine's Day looping around Parliament House in a bus dubbed "Vape Force One" to protest against the country's "illogical" vaping laws.
The off-the-wall stunt by Cory Bernardi saw the senator drive a camper van plastered with pro-vaping messages around Canberra to highlight his campaign to decriminalize e-cigarettes.
During the morning, Bernardi was spotted doing 30km per hour laps of the roads surrounding the city's government buildings while spreading his message on the side of the bus to "save the lives of 500,000 today".
The health buff and former smoker wants to make vaping with nicotine legal because he believes the government's ban on buying e-cigarettes is "illogical" given the health evidence.
He said earlier today: "Vaping is a safer method of delivering or satisfying people's nicotine addictions and if we can break the cycle and do it in a safer and healthier manner, the government should be embracing it.
"The Government's position is illogical," he continued, "Vaping is a much safer way for people to satisfy their nicotine addiction and cravings."
The government meanwhile maintains it has quality and safety concerns about e-cigarettes and has so far resisted a U-turn on their ban.
"The overwhelming medical advice and evidence is that it's likely to lead to the uptake of smoking and we cannot support that," a spokesman for Health Minister Greg Hunt told Australian Associated Press.
But Senator Bernardi insists vaping is a good way of helping smokers kick the habit and claims his Valentine's Day stunt was a way of trying to help those who need to break the cycle of nicotine addiction.
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