Joshua Trigg, Jacqueline Bowden, Richard Edwards, Billie Bonevski The Australian state of South Australia is currently considering legislative reforms that will put in place a Tobacco-Free Generation (TFG) policy, precluding the sale and supply of tobacco products to people born on or after 1 January 2007. This tobacco control policy approach aims to bring the […]
Category: Australia
Professor Mike Daube: 50 Years of Service to Public Health
Thomas J. Kehoe and colleagues* *Other contributors listed at end of the article. August 2024 marks 40 years since Professor Mike Daube AO started work in the Western Australia Department of Health, in Australia. It is an opportune time to acknowledge his continuing and tireless contribution to international tobacco control over more than 50 years. […]
Senior researchers present their case for why pharmacists should be able to dispense nicotine vapes without a prescription in Australia.
Coral Gartner, Kathryn Steadman, Lisa Nissen In Australia, nicotine-containing vape products are only available on prescription, and reforms to further restrict the availability of vaping products are planned which will make the country’s vaping laws among the most restrictive in the world. In a recent Special Communication, Professor Coral Gartner and colleagues argue for an […]
Simon Chapman at 70
Mike Daube and Becky Freeman Forty-five years ago, when modern tobacco control advocacy was still in its infancy, a youthful bundle of energy appeared on the scene in Sydney, Australia, first at Sydney University, then working for the New South Wales Health Department.. Since then, Simon Chapman has become one of the most widely known, […]
Australia: Big Tobacco wins in defeat of T21 age bill
Kathryn Barnsley An innovative legislative reform in Tasmania, Australia has been defeated, after what appears to be tobacco industry interference via third parties, with support from vaping lobby groups. A 2018 bill to gradually phase in and raise the minimum legal sales age of e-cigarettes and tobacco to 21 years (T21) now law in […]
How should governments deal with multinational consulting firms that work for the tobacco industry?
George Thomson, Louise Delany Department of Public Health, University of Otago, Wellington, New Zealand george.thomson@otago.ac.nz The New Zealand Ministry of Health is currently using a consulting firm EY (formerly Ernst & Young) to research the impacts of tobacco taxation, despite EY’s work locally and internationally for tobacco companies. This decision may breach the Framework […]
Fake news: is smoking really increasing in Australia?
Author: Simon Chapman AO This blog post originally appeared on Doctor Portal and is published here with permission. ON 14 August, 2017, The Australian newspaper ran a story guaranteed to go viral. The headline screamed: “More smokers lighting up, despite the costs”. The journalist, Adam Creighton, who has, grotesquely, written about tobacco control being like […]
Australia: progress on Tasmania’s tobacco free generation legislation
Kathryn Barnsley, University of Tasmania In 2012 and 2014 we reported that the Australian state of Tasmania was developing mechanisms for implementing the tobacco free generation (TFG). Tasmania has been paradoxically both a leader in legislative reform and a laggard in allocating resources to tobacco control. The Public Health Amendment (Tobaccofree Generation) Bill 2014 was […]
UK plain packs court decision: interests at stake ‘collide in the most irreconcilable of ways’
The decision on 19 May 2016 by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales to dismiss the legal challenges brought by the four multinational tobacco companies against the UK’s tobacco plain packaging legislation was a major blow to the industry. The 386 page ruling addresses a wide range of legal claims and evidence; […]
Industry-funded International Tax and Investment Center responds to criticism by attempting to muddy the waters
Karen A Evans-Reeves, Anna B Gilmore and Andy Rowell Tobacco Control Research Group, University of Bath, The tobacco industry is under attack. In just two weeks, in May 2016, its tactic of challenging any law that threatens its profits, took a big hit. The arbitration panel, that tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) had hoped […]