In three days of hearings about wide-ranging law reforms aimed at discouraging smoking and addressing the health risks posed by vaping, one issue dominated the questioning of health experts by senators.
Will the changes actually fuel the tobacco and vape black market?
It is an argument frequently touted by the tobacco, vaping and retail industries and their lobbyists. They say that by cracking down on the availability of tobacco and nicotine products, users will be driven to the illicit market instead, resulting in a rise in smoking rates and crime.
The proposed amendments to the public health (tobacco and other products) bill coincide with a spate of firebombings of tobacco stores by organised crime syndicates attempting to coerce retailers into selling illicit products, adding fuel to the lobbyists’ arguments. Recent media reports about the crimes included quotes from tobacco industry lobbyists who only disclosed their law enforcement, rather than their nicotine industry, backgrounds.
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If introduced, the reforms will see updated and improved graphic warnings added to tobacco packaging and included on individual cigarettes. The use of specified additives in tobacco and vaping products, like menthols, would also be banned.
New measures to discourage smoking and prevent the promotion of vaping and e-cigarettes would also be introduced, such as plain packaging on vapes.
Theo Foukkare, chief executive of the Australasian Association of Convenience Stores, told the hearings on Thursday that the public health aims of the reforms “will not be realised”.
“To put it simply, Australians are not quitting smoking. They’re quitting legal tobacco products to purchase cheaper, unregulated black market tobacco and vapes,” he said.
Foukkare did not disclose the value of the funding his group received from big tobacco, telling the inquiry chair, Senator Marielle Smith, that “the purpose of the hearing today is to talk about the bill, not the small amount of members that contribute to our organisations quite broadly”.
Smith responded: “I’m aware of the purpose of the hearing.” But she said conflict-of-interest disclosures are necessary, telling Foukkare to “provide it as soon as possible”.
Foukkare said instead of focusing on his industry group being partially supported by the big tobacco brands British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Imperial brands, the inquiry should deal with “the fallout of the worsening black market in vaping and tobacco, which is a crisis”.
He described other proposed reforms – separate to the bill under consideration – to make vapes only available through pharmacists on prescription as “ideologically driven”. The government should instead sell vapes in retail stores with the same regulatory requirements as tobacco, which he claimed would “dry up the demand for the black market”.
But there have been…
2023-11-02 02:05:35
Source from www.theguardian.com
