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.
Slimmer cigarettes are a growth market for tobacco companies.
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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…
Universities, journals and academics are increasingly concerned about the attempts of some industries to distort the science.
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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…
Very few smokers are willing to seek anything more than brief assistance.
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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…
Many thousands of people stop and reduce their smoking every year.
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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…
France’s tobacconists aren’t very happy with plain cigarette packaging.
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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.
British American Tobacco says it wants the information to ascertain whether it substantiates government claims about the impact of plain tobacco packaging laws.
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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.
The case for compensation is worthless: the value of nothing is nothing.
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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 tobacco industry used advertising to sell – rather than convey – its message in its lobbying tactics.
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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.
Smoking has long been embedded in prison culture.
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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.
Smokers respond to more filtered or more diluted cigarettes by taking bigger puffs and more of them.
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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.
Tobacco is sold in nearly every shop, on every street corner, in every neighbourhood.
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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.
Smokers would not riot in the streets. Many would welcome it.
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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.
The ban disadvantages smokers who may have difficulty quitting but want to reduce the risks of smoking.
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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.
Indonesians smoke 300 billion cigarettes in a year.
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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.
Unassisted quitting is mentioned in the guidelines but not as an option to be encouraged.
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