A new study suggests making cigarettes cheaper would risk making smoking-related poverty in Australia worse overall, given it could lead to more people smoking.
- Director, NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame and ARC Future Fellow, The University of Queensland
The illicit market for tobacco is not an inevitable result of high excise taxes.
South Australian landlords who turn a blind eye on illegal tobacco can now be fined, while Queensland is proposing bigger fines and even a year in jail.
Critics of the tobacco excise argue the tax has stopped working to further reduce smoking rates and should be lowered.
Retail outlets already or will soon need to have a licence to sell cigarettes. But there aren’t restrictions on the number of licensed outlets.
The change is intended to balance access to vapes for adults using them to quit smoking with the need to protect young people from taking up vaping.
Allowing pharmacists to dispense nicotine vapes without a prescription would ensure people who are using them to quit smoking could access them legally, while preventing inappropriate sales to youth.
Australia’s approach is welcome but doesn’t go far enough. New Zealand’s plans are much bolder. Here’s how they compare.
In Australia alone, it’s estimated up to 8.9 billion butts are littered each year. A new report finds a mandatory product stewardship scheme can cut this by around half.
From October 1, Australians will only be able to buy e-cigarettes containing nicotine if they have a prescription from a doctor. But there’s another evidence-based way to help more smokers quit.
Defining what this disease is and who has it has helped those investigating the outbreak understand what caused it.
We’ve still got a lot to learn about the long term health effects of vaping. But based on what we know so far, vaping liquids containing oils, and especially cannabis/THC liquids, should be avoided.
Australia’s ban on e-cigarettes is ethically murky. It’s a paternalistic policy that denies adult smokers the right to use a less harmful form of nicotine.
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