Australia’s peak retail advocacy group has called on the Federal Government to adopt a similar tobacco and smoking cessation strategy as New Zealand, by regulating the sale of strictly manufactured vapes and smoking cessation products by retailers to get more Australians to quit smoking.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, published today, New Zealand’s Minister for Customs and Associate Minister for Health, Casey Costello, praised her nation’s highly effective policy, which she said had resulted in a significant drop in the number of daily smokers and deterred youth from taking up smoking and vaping.
Australian Association of Convenience Stores (AACS) CEO Theo Foukkare congratulated Minister Costello and the New Zealand Government on its success and renewed calls for Australian law makers to urgently follow suit.
“The Kiwis have taken the adult approach to this, and it has worked,” he said.
Minister Costello told the Daily Telegraph her government’s policy strictly regulates the sale of nicotine vapes and other smoking cessation products by retailers.
“New Zealand has control over vapes and who buys them because its government has seen the global evidence and actually recognised that allowing retailers to sell strictly regulated vapes to adults – where lolly flavours and single use devices are banned – does help adult smokers quit tobacco, and deters young people from taking up smoking and vaping altogether.
Minister Costello told the Daily Telegraph “the message really simply is ‘if you don’t smoke, don’t vape’,”
Mr Foukkare said the Albanese Government’s prohibition on vape sales by retailers in Australia had fuelled the deadly black market wars that have exploded across the nation over recent years.
“It’s safe to be a genuine, law-abiding retailer in New Zealand who sells government approved tobacco and nicotine vapes– but it’s bloody terrifying for our members in Australia, who are at the mercy of criminal gangs that threaten to, and often do, fire bomb their stores if they don’t sell dodgy, illegal vapes and illicit tobacco for them,” Mr Foukkare said.
“When will the Australian Federal Government finally realise it has failed on community health and safety, and failed retailers by putting their safety at risk, while sending their businesses broke because it is marrying itself to its failed vape and tobacco excise policy?” he said.
“When will Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Health Minister Mark Butler finally see that constantly jacking up the taxes on illicit tobacco is directly sending Aussie adult smoke to the black market and handing billions of dollars to organised crime and giving even more power to these dangerous crime groups?
“AACS has been calling for Australia to follow a similar path to New Zealand policy for years now and – in that time – all we’ve seen is crime grow and law-abiding retailers run out of business, while adults Australian are giving up legal regulated tobacco for illicit cigarettes and illegal vapes.
“It’s time to burst the ideological bubble and face up to the hard facts,” Mr Foukkare said.
Theo Foukkare is available for interviews and news grabs on 0423 003 133.
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