First, to be clear, I am not saying illicit tobacco trade does not exist. It certainly does and is a problem.
But when it comes to tobacco, it helps to always be a bit paranoid about every claim that you hear. Big Tobacco does often argue that raising taxes /​ making laws more stringent is risky, because it could lead to increased illicit trade. But this argument does not actually hold up. Illicit cigarette sales in the UK over the last few decades:
I am no expert on the best way to crack down on illicit trade, but I do believe that if the UK could deal with this issue, so can Australia, if it tries harder. I do wonder if lobbying for more funding /​ helping the AU government come up with novel ways to solve this problem could be an effective intervention. I do not believe that the correct answer to this problem is that we should just give up and let the tobacco companies get the excise lowered. Tobacco taxes are the most effective way to drive behaviour change, after all.
Yes, sorry, I should be clear I am arguing for new tobacco legislation to be paired with stronger enforcement, and not for new tobacco legislation to be avoided.
It also feels like smugglers helping regular smokers get discounts on their habit are the wrong model, since the target for the ban is young people who generally don’t [yet]have a smoking addiction. Basically everyone else buys cigarettes legally in convenience stores and teenagers already barely smoke them with the trend being steeply downwards since the turn of the century. Kids who don’t have a smoking habit and increasingly aren’t interested in trying are barely a demand factor for underground cigarettes, especially since they can also obtain them by asking an older person to purchase it in a regular convenience store, same as 15 year olds wanting to experiment with cigarettes and alcohol have done for years. .
It’s just it places more of a barrier to them getting it regularly in quantities likely to become habit-forming, and ultimately apart from being highly addictive when people do that tobacco doesn’t have much appeal as a drug, offering minimal high and being something grandma smokes and teen idols don’t, so it really doesn’t seem like something that a few years down the line is going to result in speakeasies full of chainsmoking twentysomethings or a new sideline for dealers in cocaine.
First, to be clear, I am not saying illicit tobacco trade does not exist. It certainly does and is a problem.
But when it comes to tobacco, it helps to always be a bit paranoid about every claim that you hear. Big Tobacco does often argue that raising taxes /​ making laws more stringent is risky, because it could lead to increased illicit trade. But this argument does not actually hold up. Illicit cigarette sales in the UK over the last few decades:
When it comes to Australia: well, it does seems that the article I linked above does not really hold up here, right? Australia does have a massive problem with illicit sales. Now, there certainly are some former law enforcement officers often appearing on Australian media who say that the only way to deal with this problem is that the tax should be lowered. Sounds reasonable, right? Well, turns out that they are usually funded by Big Tobacco, even if they don’t disclose it.
I am no expert on the best way to crack down on illicit trade, but I do believe that if the UK could deal with this issue, so can Australia, if it tries harder. I do wonder if lobbying for more funding /​ helping the AU government come up with novel ways to solve this problem could be an effective intervention. I do not believe that the correct answer to this problem is that we should just give up and let the tobacco companies get the excise lowered. Tobacco taxes are the most effective way to drive behaviour change, after all.
Yes, sorry, I should be clear I am arguing for new tobacco legislation to be paired with stronger enforcement, and not for new tobacco legislation to be avoided.
It also feels like smugglers helping regular smokers get discounts on their habit are the wrong model, since the target for the ban is young people who generally don’t [yet]have a smoking addiction. Basically everyone else buys cigarettes legally in convenience stores and teenagers already barely smoke them with the trend being steeply downwards since the turn of the century. Kids who don’t have a smoking habit and increasingly aren’t interested in trying are barely a demand factor for underground cigarettes, especially since they can also obtain them by asking an older person to purchase it in a regular convenience store, same as 15 year olds wanting to experiment with cigarettes and alcohol have done for years. .
It’s just it places more of a barrier to them getting it regularly in quantities likely to become habit-forming, and ultimately apart from being highly addictive when people do that tobacco doesn’t have much appeal as a drug, offering minimal high and being something grandma smokes and teen idols don’t, so it really doesn’t seem like something that a few years down the line is going to result in speakeasies full of chainsmoking twentysomethings or a new sideline for dealers in cocaine.