5 May 2022
By: Cameron Carpenter Source: Daily Mail Australia
Australia could ban cigarette sales to certain age groups by 2030, if recommendations from the draft national tobacco strategy are accepted.
Australia’s 2022-2030 consultation draft smoking strategy wants Australia to consider raising the minimum age of when you can buy tobacco, which is currently 18.
Part of the draft report’s strategy is based on the experience in other countries – and includes a ban on buying tobacco related products online.
Responsibility for implementing any new policy will be a matter for state governments once the draft strategy moves through the consultation stage and is released to the public.
The new policy development comes as a national survey, conducted by the Cancer Council, revealed that most Australians would support a policy that stops retailers from selling cigarettes completely.
Only 16.1 per cent of Australians surveyed said a ban would be a ‘bad thing’, while a staggering 50.8 per cent supported a phase-out, and an overwhelming majority of 61.8 per cent said it should happen within the next decade.
Within the study, 75.3 per cent of surveyed Australians also supported the idea of stricter licensing regulations for retailers, while 76.3 per cent wanted more sales restrictions in places where children could enter.
Director of Quit Victoria Dr Sarah White says she expects fewer retailers to stop stocking cigarettes regardless of the ban.
‘The market might just get to a point where the retailers say: ‘There’s not enough people buying these products, it’s something I have to lock away, it costs me a lot to keep under my counter, we might just give it away ourselves,’ she told 3AW.
‘I’ve talked to quite a few retailers who are saying they’re not sure whether they want to stay in the business because it’s not a very profitable business for them.’
Australia is already home to the most expensive cigarettes in the world, with a typical 20-pack costing $40.
That means those who smoke a pack a day will be shelling out about $12,500 a year for their habit – more than any other country in the world.
The Australian government rakes in about $17billion in tobacco tax each year.
This has led to a surge in the black market tobacco as organised crime syndicates flood the Australian market with cheap smokes.
The illegal tobacco trade is worth about $600 million annually, according to Border Force.
In December, New Zealand banned young people from ever being allowed to buy cigarettes in a rolling scheme that aims to make the entire nation of five million smoke-free.
People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to buy cigarettes in their lifetime under Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s radical new laws.
‘We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth,’ associate health minister Ayesha Verrall said.
However, the new law will not impact vaping, with Dr Verrall saying tobacco smoking is more harmful and remains a leading cause of preventable deaths in New Zealand, killing up to 5,000 people each year.
The measures will make New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world, just behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned outright.
Officials in New Zealand have not said how they plan to police the ban, nor which retailers would be barred from selling tobacco products.
At the moment, tobacco retailers face fines of between NZ$500 and NZ$1,000 for selling cigarettes to minors.
Although many experts have welcomed the move, others have warned that it could cause a ‘gradual prohibition’ and create a black market for tobacco, prompting a crime wave.
