NZ Vaping Alliance

🔎 Ireland is lagging behind New Zealand. While New Zealand has delivered one of the fastest declines in smoking seen anywhere in the world, cutting its rate to just 6.8%, Ireland’s smoking rate has remained largely unchanged since 2019. This widening gap reflects starkly different policy choices: following the science versus disregarding it. Find out more: smokefreesweden.org/resource…

Tobacco Excise and Vape Restrictions: Has It Been Worth It? Australia cannot afford to keep confusing stubbornness with success. Let’s take a look at the maths, and assess the damage. Since early 2024, the federal government has committed more than $365 million to fighting illicit tobacco. Yet estimated tobacco excise losses reached $7.7 billion to $11.8 billion in 2024–25 alone. How long can taxpayers fund this game of whack-a-mole before Canberra rethinks the incentives feeding the black market? Meanwhile, the ABS estimates the quantity of nicotine consumed increased almost 40% between 2017 and 2025. That measures consumption, rather than the number of users, but it hardly supports a victory lap. The human cost is harder to calculate. The states emergency response budgets are being stretched by tens of millions as they put out fires, clean up burning youths and deal with the bodies of murder victims. Hundreds of suspected tobacco-war firebombings have turned neighbouring businesses into collateral damage. Owners who have never sold a cigarette face ruined livelihoods and insurance they cannot afford or even get. Children are being drawn into violence: a 13-year-old was recently critically injured in an alleged arson incident amid Melbourne’s escalating attacks. Criminals bear responsibility for their crimes. Governments bear responsibility for examining whether their policies help sustain the profits those criminals fight over. But doubling down on already doubled down on failed tobacco and vape policies and allowing this mess to continue puts blood on their hands! Smoking’s estimated toll of around 24,000 Australian deaths a year, roughly 66 a day demands policies judged by lives saved. That’s the KPI that is most disturbing. Yet it’s remarkably clear what the government should do to put an end to this level of stupidity that continues to result in some of the worst carnage Australia has ever experienced in modern history. Review the excise settings. Give adult smokers sensible, practical, regulated access to all lower-risk alternatives. Enforce age restrictions and target violent syndicates. When the response to every failure is another raid and another funding announcement, Australians deserve to ask: Has this been worth it and who is paying the price? Spoiler alert ‼️ You are paying for it!

The Asia-Pacific Declaration on Harm Reduction was officially launched at #AFN26 calling for risk-proportionate regulation that gives adults access to demonstrably safer nicotine alternatives. visit: afn.asia/declaration

Becky, describing the illicit tobacco crisis as an opportunity to “get the job done” risks treating a serious policy challenge as confirmation that the existing approach simply needs to go further. Restricting tobacco retailers deserves assessment. But the claim that this would remove the need for sting operations overlooks your own proposal. Authorised retailers would still need monitoring for illicit stock, tax compliance and sales to children. A shorter list of legal shops cannot establish what happens to the demand displaced from those that close. “One shop per suburb” is an idea, not evidence of a workable solution. What would it do to illicit purchasing, travel costs, online supply and smoking? Would people quit, or find another supplier? Those outcomes need investigation before this is presented as the obvious answer. Your proposal would preserve tightly controlled access to combustible cigarettes. Yet the post gives no consideration to helping adults replace smoking with lower-risk alternatives. Protecting children should sit alongside practical routes out of smoking for adults. Likewise, declaring that excise reform “will kill more Australians” requires evidence about the actual package, including enforcement, cessation support and regulated alternatives. Its risks warrant scrutiny. So do the risks of further restricting the legal market. Past achievements cannot settle every present policy question. An illicit market of this scale should prompt institutions to examine their assumptions, publish measurable objectives and explain what evidence would make them change course. Public health authority carries a responsibility to demonstrate outcomes. Confidence alone cannot fulfil it.