How far have we come with tobacco control?

Australia needs innovative policies and stricter access to cigarettes for smoking rates to reach the national target of 5% by 2030, says tobacco policy expert Professor Becky Freeman in a new paper published in Public Health Research & Practice.  

“Australia has had much success in adopting measures that reduce the appeal of and demand for tobacco products,” Prof Freeman said. “However, it is increasingly intolerable to continue selling such highly addictive and deadly products alongside everyday groceries and household goods.”

Prof Freeman, from the Sydney School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, is an expert in tobacco control policy and a winner of the Sax Institute’s 2024 Research Action Awards. The paper is part of a series in the 10^th anniversary issue of Public Health Research & Practice that reflects on 10 years of preventive health in Australia.

The paper outlines the significant impact that plain packaging laws and annual tobacco tax increases had on smoking rates over the past decade, dropping from 16.4% in 2013 to 11.1% in 2022-23. “Australian plain packaging laws have been noted as significantly shifting the tobacco-control landscape, and what was once an innovative policy is now de rigueur best practice,” Prof Freeman said.

After these successes, however, “tobacco policy legislation largely stalled”, which led to the rise of vaping products in Australia, said Prof Freeman. By 2022, data showed that 28% of teenagers aged 14-17 years had used vapes in some way.

The government’s subsequent crackdown on vape access in 2024, which limited sales to pharmacies with restrictions on flavour and nicotine concentration, was “a very welcome end to ‘raspberry-ice-pink-unicorn’ illicit vapes that were being openly sold to teens by general retailers.”

The paper also comments on current tobacco controls and what can be done to reduce smoking prevalence to 5% by 2030, in line with the National Tobacco Strategy goal.

Prof Freeman commends the tobacco reforms that will be place by 1 July 2025, such as refreshed graphic warnings on packaging plus the addition of warnings on the cigarettes themselves. More innovative policies were needed, however, to address the widespread access to cigarettes in Australia.

“A ‘set it and forget’ approach to tobacco control is not possible when the tobacco industry continues to develop new products that exploit vagaries in public health policy.”

Later this year, members of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control will consider measures to affect the sale of tobacco products, which presents an opportunity for Australia to once again implement transformative policies, said Prof Freeman.

“In the race to end the tobacco epidemic, we should accept nothing less than first place.”