Requiring low-nicotine cigarettes sounds good, but it’s not the answer. Policy makers instead should speed up the support of safer, satisfying forms of nicotine and tobacco.
In 2012, in the early days of the rise of e-cigarettes, Kingsley Wheaton, Director of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs at British American Tobacco, said “Our core business is, and will remain in, tobacco…
A tin pot dictator plunders billions from his blighted nation’s treasury. Sensing he’ll soon be exiled, amid public relations fanfare, he offers ill-gotten millions to a local university for a new school…
This week The Guardian published a long-form profile by veteran journalist Gideon Haigh of Dr Bronwyn King. I wrote a column about her last October when her efforts to persuade the Australian superannuation…
The New Zealand government has decided to reorient its priorities in tobacco control. It has announced it will be pulling 73% of its previous funding support for tobacco control advocacy. The only money…
As smoking continues its inexorable southward journey toward single-digit percentages of populations being smokers, it’s common to hear people say the smokers who remain are all “hard core”, heavily dependent…
The regulation of e-cigarettes has been controversial across the world. As the South African government decides on its approach, there are pros and cons to weigh up.
Restricting entities such as tobacco companies’ use of FOI laws is not the best legal response if it helps public bodies generally become more secretive.
Imagine you were about to buy a property and were advised that in two years time, a major freeway would be built two hundred metres away, greatly diminishing the value of your purchase. Then imagine you…
The lobbying tactics developed by the US tobacco industry no longer just targeted government, but expanded to include the voting public. These tactics still exist in lobbying today.
It’s fair to say Victoria’s ban on smoking in prisons has had some teething issues, but there’s strong evidence to suggest the move is doing the right thing by inmates, staff and the health system.
Past tobacco control measures have changed the pack, while the cigarettes inside remain the same. A logical next step is to regulate how companies engineer cigarettes to promote their use.
While tobacco demand-reduction strategies have been widely implemented in Australia and internationally, comparatively little has been done to control the sale and supply of tobacco products.
I’m a regular drug user. Every morning I take a drug to manage blood pressure. I get my supplies from my neighbourhood dealer, but I can get the stuff almost anywhere.
Australia’s ban on e-cigarettes is ethically murky. It’s a paternalistic policy that denies adult smokers the right to use a less harmful form of nicotine.
If legislation currently before the Tasmanian parliament passes, the state could be the first in the world to prohibit the sale of tobacco to people born after 2000.