this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
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Australia made cigarettes expensive to stop people smoking. Did it go too far? (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 2 days ago by Yasm@programming.dev to c/australia@aussie.zone
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[–] blind3rdeye@aussie.zone 8 points 6 hours ago

Illegal tobacco markets require that people still smoke. The current laws are in place to reduce the number of people who smoke.

So the illegal markets are fighting a losing battle here. Their market is shrinking. And as they take more market-share from lawful sellers, that only serves to hasten the decline, because those legitimate businesses are required to mask the illegal ones. Every seizure of illegal goods is a loss for that illegal business.

So I don't think we need to a change strategy here. The smoking industry is going to run out of breath, as long as we don't give them a break. I pretty wary of the people who are arguing in favour of easing off. One Nation in particular is basically just a lobbying magnet.

[–] MidsizedSedan@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I know the cash only shop selling cigarettes for $5 each.

They even taking apple pay / payID now, instead of eftpos

[–] mrmule@sh.itjust.works 6 points 23 hours ago

Worked for me! I smoked for 30 years. Went to Australia to 3 months and gave up. They were far too expensive.

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Did it go too far?

Yes, obviously.

The purported reason for the tax is to discourage people smoking. If the unintended effect is supporting criminals providing an unregulated product, then obviously the tax is not satisfying it's objective.

There's a point at which more tax is just more punishment for addicts.

It's similar to increasing interest rates to curb inflation, it's effective up to a point, but increases beyond that fail to control behavior.

Nicotine addiction is complex, like any form of substance abuse. The high taxes in Australia have done a great job of reducing the harm, but if we've reached the point where more tax doesn't reduce harm then we need to consider other measures.

[–] spiffmeister@aussie.zone 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Yes, obviously.

Not that obviously, the article cites data from Canada. The research states:

There is strong evidence that reduction of tobacco taxes to combat smuggling had an adverse impact on smoking rates in youth.

Given how many articles I see popping up on sky about this and that most of this BS seems to come from Pauline, pretty sure we can chalk this policy discussion up to the tobacco industry.

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

LOL. I agree that Hanson's position does sound like she's got tobacco lobbyists up her ass. God she's trashy.

That said, that doesn't really contradict what I've said, both can be true.

I don't think we should halve excise or whatever, just stop the regular increases of theyre no longer effective.

[–] spiffmeister@aussie.zone 1 points 17 hours ago

That might be fair. Could argue that banning like the UK did or funding a way to crackdown on the black market might be better.

It isn't really clear from the article if increases are still reducing numbers or not (even if it's at a reduced rate).

[–] Fluke@feddit.uk 2 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

She the one that looks straight out of a 70s soap opera? (Sorry, from the UK and don't know the names of your national scumbags 💛)

[–] DiaDeLosMuertos@aussie.zone 1 points 20 hours ago

Lol. Probably the one that you're thinking about. You might not have heard the classical tribute song that was made in her honour, "Fish And Chip Bitch From Ipswich".

[–] king_comrade@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

There is no future where 0 people smoke or consume some form of nicotine. I think the tax excise has simply achieved all it can, and new inventive strategies for tackling addiction are needed. Trying to achieve a smoke free society is folly though, especially while conditions continue to deteriorate across our society.

[–] auzy1@lemmy.world 36 points 2 days ago (4 children)

No. It's simply an enforcement issue. Police aren't doing their job

If you offer $1000 for every successful report of illegal tabacco and actually pursued the dodgy stores, it provides even smokers with incentive to report

Every non smoker out there is so f**king sick of the tobacco industry.

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I mean, enforcing bans on illicit substances has always worked so well historically.

[–] blind3rdeye@aussie.zone 3 points 6 hours ago

But anti-smoking laws really have reduced smoking rates - by a lot. So yeah, sometimes that kind of law really does work. In fact it usually does work - just not always.

[–] tankiesmasher@aussie.zone 5 points 1 day ago

It is kinda weird how the arguments for this can sound like neocons arguing for the war on drugs.

The difference is the policy is working, with smoking continuing to trend down consistently.

[–] tankiesmasher@aussie.zone 4 points 1 day ago

It's not "simply" anything. Ofc if you assume police are just lazy that makes sense, but if you acknowledge that law enforcement is operating at capacity it's clear they don't benefit from more reports. They will need to sacrifice more hours sifting through more reports, many of which may be lower quality or even false because of the perverse incentives. Rest assured every store in the country will quickly accrue many reports against it, and police will spend more time investigating innocent stores than guilty ones.

[–] king_comrade@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The harder the police enforce, the more clever the market becomes. Violent and brutal crackdowns do nothing to the drug market so why would tobacco be any different?

[–] auzy1@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

People don't get paid a reward to report those either

It's a cost benefit analysis...

[–] budget_biochemist@slrpnk.net 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

As an asthmatic who gets attacks from all forms of smoke, I'd be happy if they outright banned it. Then enforcement would be easy too, anyone smoking would be breaking the law.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Thankfully (for me) smoking has collapsed in the UK in the last decade or so. A lot of that is down to vaping. Unfortunately, it's almost entirely the conscientious smokers who changed over. The end result is I would rather try and move on a bunch of heroin addicts than a group of smokers. They also have an annoying habit of standing upwind, rather than downwind.

[–] auzy1@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's pretty much spot on.

They were all given the chance to be respectful. You can't even go shopping without breathing in smoke though, and I'm tired of cleaning up cigarette butts, even in parks. It might only be a few people doing it, but the rest of the smoking community aren't holding them accountable

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

the rest of the smoking community aren’t holding them accountable

what are your expectations here? how would a smoker hold other smokers accountable ?

[–] auzy1@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Pretty fuckin easily

When other smokers drop a lit cigarette on the ground they tell them to pick it up. When there are other smokers smoking in front of shops tell them to move, etc.

They can guilt trip them into doing more, and use the threat of being restricted as an excuse

Even helping pick up cigs would be great, but instead us non smokers need to expose ourselves to nicotine.

Instead, none of them care.. all they do is whinge when they do nothing to stop all of this, and politicians are left with no options but to restrict smoking more because many of them act like toddlers and they're putting everyone else's health at risk.

Even with vaping, they had an opportunity. Instead vaping shops were selling to kids, they were leaving their shitty vapes everywhere and many were/are vaping inside and pretending they're doing us a favor by switching to vape and that it's 100% safe.

It's worse than even the gun community

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

That's not really how societal norms are maintained though.

Why would a smoker have any more responsibility to correct the behavior of another smoker than a non-smoker would?

If someone is walking their dog, are they expected to pick up all the poo from all the other dogs?

When you're driving do you try to block others who might drive too fast?

When you're at the park, do you intervene when you see someone enjoying a glass of wine in public?

[–] auzy1@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Dog poo doesn't affect the health of other people.

There is no second hand alcoholism

And yes, when people drive like assholes like prepare to do a dangerous overtake, I'll move my car in a way so they know they can't try it. And I wont block speeding cars. I have called police a few times on cars going dangerously over the limit though

Also, other dog owners are pissed off when people don't clean up the poo.

Smokers have normalized leaving their trash on the ground and harming the health of others. And they don't care when other smokers do it. If smokers aren't going to protect non smokers, laws need to be used to do it for them.

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 0 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

So in summary... you don't bother correcting the behavior of others at all, you just moan about it online and make up reasons why other people should fix the things you don't like about the world.

Butts on the ground don't effect the health of others.

There's already laws about where people are allowed to smoke in order to avoid harming others.

[–] auzy1@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

Theres a dumb comment. "Oh cigarette butts on the ground don't affect your health"

All the dipshits smoking in front of shops do, and vaping secretly indoors. Which is actually what I said. But nicotine is absorbed through the skin, so it's possible picking up cigarettes is exposing me to nicotine

Looking forward to more smoking bans because entitled dipshit smokers aren't doing the right thing.

They should be banned entirely. My point is that the smoking community doesn't seem to care that other smokers are breaking rules so why should anyone defend their rights to smoke

[–] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 1 points 1 hour ago

I’m tired of cleaning up cigarette butts, even in parks. It might only be a few people doing it, but the rest of the smoking community aren’t holding them accountable

Indeed, a stupid thing to say.

You know you can just back down right?

"Yeah ok, I guess there's not really a smoking community and it's kinda dumb to think that smokers will pick up butts. I just hate people smoking."

[–] Slashme@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

OK, so previously illegal cigs were 10% of the market, and now they're 80%. But the market has shrunk dramatically. From the article:

In 2010, about one in seven Australians smoked daily.

The country's main national household survey last year found that rate had dropped to about one in 18 people.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you assume the market halved, absolute illegal trade still went up 4x

[–] Slashme@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And if less than half as many people are smoking, that's still a win in my book.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure just ignore the drive by shootings and burning buildings on your way down the street

[–] tankiesmasher@aussie.zone 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

If the market continues to trend downwards then illegal trade will fall as well until it's below pre-excise levels.

If the market plateaus with the illegal market still above pre-excise levels then I'd agree they should remove the excise and call the policy a failure... Well, maybe, you might be able to argue some marginal increase is worth a massive decrease in smoking, not 4x, but maybe 1.1-1.3x.