AUSTRALIA | Australia’s peak retail advocacy group has called on the Federal Government to adopt a similar tobacco and smoking cessation strategy to New Zealand.
Regulating the sale of strictly manufactured vapes and smoking cessation products by retailers can get more Australians to quit smoking.
Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) CEO Theo Foukkare congratulated Minister Costello and the New Zealand Government on their success in achieving a significant drop in the number of daily smokers and deterring youth from taking up smoking and vaping.
He also renewed calls for Australian lawmakers to follow suit urgently.
“The Kiwis have taken the adult approach to this, and it has worked,” he said.
New Zealand’s government policy strictly regulates the sale of nicotine vapes and other smoking cessation products by retailers.
“New Zealand has control over vapes and who buys them because its government has seen the global evidence and actually recognised that allowing retailers to sell strictly regulated vapes to adults – where lolly flavours and single use devices are banned – does help adult smokers quit tobacco, and deters young people from taking up smoking and vaping altogether.”
Foukkare said the Albanese Government’s prohibition on vape sales by retailers in Australia had fuelled the deadly black market wars that have exploded across the nation over recent years.
“It’s safe to be a genuine, law-abiding retailer in New Zealand who sells government approved tobacco and nicotine vapes– but it’s bloody terrifying for our members in Australia, who are at the mercy of criminal gangs that threaten to, and often do, fire bomb their stores if they don’t sell dodgy, illegal vapes and illicit tobacco for them,” Foukkare added.
“When will the Australian Federal Government finally realise it has failed on community health and safety, and failed retailers by putting their safety at risk, while sending their businesses broke because it is marrying itself to its failed vape and tobacco excise policy?”
“When will Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler finally see that constantly jacking up the taxes on illicit tobacco is directly sending Aussie adult smokers to the black market and handing billions of dollars to organised crime and giving even more power to these dangerous crime groups?”
Foukkare said it was time to burst the ideological bubble and face up to the hard facts.
AACS has been advocating for Australia to follow a similar path to New Zealand's policy for years, and during that time, crime rates have increased. Law-abiding retailers have run out of business, while adult Australians are giving up legal, regulated tobacco for illicit cigarettes and illegal vapes.
