Op-Ed: Tobacco wars – Now officially losing by the numbers in Australia

Health campaigners say the incoming New Zealand government’s plan to end a ban on selling cigarettes is a “huge win for the tobacco industry” – Copyright AFP Pedro PARDO

Australia made a big move to combat smoking years ago. I’ve done two of their surveys. Just about everything that was predicted would go wrong did go wrong.

It’s the numbers doing the damage.

To summarize:

Tobacco excise revenue is about $9 billion down.

Illegal tobacco sales aren’t being publicized, but they must be high if excise is so severely affected.

If $9 billion in revenue has gone out the window, the demand for tobacco hasn’t budged much if at all.

All this must be making a lot of money for organized crime. Remember, Australia is a very small market by world standards. If billions of dollars are in the mix, demand must be very high.

That puts the Quit campaign outcomes very much in question. The stats are sending a very different message. Remember also that the population has increased, including people from countries where smoking is common, so user numbers need review.

Recently, some people were arrested for stealing 1.4 tonnes of tobacco. They obviously weren’t stealing it just to look at it.

Tougher penalties for illegal sales are unlikely to work. The theory of shutting down tobacconists overlooks the fact that illegal tobacco can be sold in the same way as marijuana, the other long-lost war.

That pretty much covers the current state of play. There’s much more to this, and nobody’s even pretending to look at it.

Why do people smoke tobacco at all? It reduces stress. Oxidization delivers a quick fix. Oxidized nicotinic acid is a close analog to vitamin B3, the natural stress manager. You get addicted to anything that has natural receptors.

Why are so many toxins permitted in tobacco anyway? It’s the anti-regulation lobby again. In practice, they’re too lazy to produce “organic” tobacco.

“Organic” tobacco does exist. I’ve seen it for myself. It’s expensive, but there are no agricultural additives.

Vaping has fundamentally changed the black market. Vapes are much less bulky than solid tobacco, making it easier to smuggle. It also means quality issues with the risk of toxic additives in an unregulated market.

In Australia vaping

Deregulation mania has kept the law well behind the facts, and tobacco is no exception. The law should offer positives for people, not negatives.

Now, an issue for the world:

Why aren’t there safe, simple, healthy, legal anti-stress options?