(Image: Private Media)

Should Australia copy New Zealand and ban smoking? The answer is no, but we should recognise some good aspects of its policy decision.

The good thing about its choice is that it realises tax hikes are tapped out.

“We’ve already seen the full impact of excise tax increases,” said Dr Ayesha Verrall, NZ’s associate Health Minister. “The government recognises that going further will not help people quit, it will only further punish smokers who are struggling to kick the habit.

“That’s why our plan, released today, contains new measures to help us get to our goal.”

Crikey has previously published the disproportionate effect of tobacco tax excise. Every single cigarette has $1.10 of tax in it these days. The idea is to deter, and it works well on teens. But when it doesn’t work you just make poor people poorer. 

It is disproportionately the disadvantaged and the rural population who smoke. It’s an incredibly big tax on the poor. Smoking eats up a massive chunk of the disposable income of people, such as those with schizophrenia, who tend to smoke at very high levels.

So New Zealand’s approach dodges that bullet. But the global trend is away from prohibition. Across the United States, states are legalising marijuana for medical and even recreational use. A ban opens the door for illegal supply.

And in Australia there’s already a lot of illegal trade in tobacco. They call it “chop chop”, and to judge by the Google trends data there’s plenty of interest in it.

Do we really want to give over a whole industry to organised crime which will accept it with glee? Prohibitions are the best friend of organised crime, and as this recent Vice story on child hitmen underlines, organised crime is awful.

The lungs of Aotearoa

In four years, smoking will be banned for 18-year-olds In NZ. That means that today’s 15-year-olds will be the last legal smoking generation and smoking will presumably be banned everywhere and for everyone in about 75 years (roughly speaking, but it’d be silly to expect smokers to live to be over 90). 

It would be strange to be 30 and have friends who are 31 — or a spouse, even — who can legally smoke when you can’t. It will be interesting to see if the bans are enforced, and on whom the enforcement falls. Smoking is highest among the Maori, and it is them the ban is designed to protect. If enforcement is heavy-handed, it could work the other way.

Australia’s smoking rates are low by global standards, at 10% per day. Few countries have squeezed smoking lower than that. NZ is aiming at 5% by 2025.

But smoking rates are falling in Australia still. The pandemic has accelerated the trend. Because smoking is for many a social activity, not being able to go to the pub meant fewer chances to smoke. Quitting smoking has been — like baking sourdough — a trend of the pandemic.

The fall in smoking has been acute enough that the major supermarkets are calling out the impact of cigarette sales on their revenue. Woolworths reported falling sales in the first quarter of this financial year, for example, but if you take tobacco out of the equation, sales were actually rising. That’s how material it has been.

The story is clear: Australian tobacco use is in freefall already, without even having to rely on a ban that could create opportunities for organised crime and unfair enforcement.

The practicalities of a smoking ban are also a problem. What about tourists? No smoking in the aeroplane is one thing, but what about when you get off the plane? We get a lot of travellers from Asian countries who smoke a lot. There may be pressure for exemptions of them (like how tourists can drink in some Middle Eastern countries), and that creates ambiguity.

The next chart shows smoking rates by age — they are falling, and as each generation contains fewer smokers, the social pressure to smoke falls further.

Near my house is a park where teenagers convene. They hang out in motley groups, sitting on the grass, out of sight of the road. Every time I see them, I think they will be smoking. But they never ever are. The trope of the smoking teen is now very rare, thankfully. Prohibition is a dangerous idea. What’s more, it’s one we don’t need.