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    ABS estimates 80pc of tobacco consumed in Australia last year was illegally sourced
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    ABS estimates 80pc of tobacco consumed in Australia last year was illegally sourced

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    48 Comments

    1. icanucan on

      That’s a huge number.

      Is the official government line still “there’s no connection between high taxes and the black market”??

    2. JASHIKO_ on

      They taxed everyone so hard they created a blackmarket… Who’d have ever guessed….

      I’d expect to see more of this stuff happening as the price of everything goes through the roof.

    3. blenders_pride666 on

      Our government is so idiotic its unbelievable, the tobacco wars and smuggling is something they have directly created – nobody else to blame. The taxes on smoking far outweigh the cost that smokers have on our public healthcare system. They also completely fucked up with vapes as well, I used to be able to easily buy nicotine and choose my own strengths, now all you can easily get is a ridiculously strong and overpriced disposable. Watch the same thing start happening with alcohol soon….

    5. BlooBloo82 on

      No one saw this coming, unprecedented, usually prohibition works flawlessly

    6. Roulette-Adventures on

      I gave up when smokes got to about $35 a packet, that was two years ago. Tried nicotine aids and patches – fucking useless. Went cold turkey and it worked a treat.

      I never could find a source for cheap smokes, otherwise I might have kept smoking.

    8. babycynic on

      Banning vapes and overtaxing cigarettes is going to go down as one of the dumbest public health decisions in history, I can’t believe that after years of progress with reducing the smoking rate that it’s going up again. It’s making it so much easier for kids to start smoking or vaping cos no one gives a shit about selling to teens anymore because it’s illegal already, it’s just a fucked situation and now the government won’t even have tax dollars to help cover the cost of all of the future health issues. 

    12. welcomefinside on

      This checks out, of all of the people I know who smokes only one of them gets the legit durries

    14. RedDeer505 on

      They should try prohibition next.

      Oh, sorry, I thought the brief was for things that don’t work. My mistake.

    16. Oz-jim1 on

      The greedy idiots and puppets in government will never learn to cut down on their unchecked spendings instead of taxing the population to death.
      People will find a way to survive the high taxation.

    18. Rev-Dr-Slimeass on

      I moved here from New Zealand a month ago, and it has been absolutely mindblowing how much this country smells like cigarettes. NZ has a ton of vapers, but that doesn’t really smell. There are smokers absolutely everywhere here and it stinks.

    19. DecidedUser on

      Coming from a bartender I would estimate high 90%, I do not really ever see legal tobacco anywhere. Our tobacco vending machine is effectively never used. Doesn’t matter if they are a tourist who barely speaks english or a local.

    22. ceesie12 on

      I still have no idea where to get cheap smokes.

      Sick of paying $100+ for a pouch lmao.

    24. iball1984 on

      Another scary number – Australians are using 40% more nicotine than in 2017.

      That obviously includes vaping, but is yet another example of the complete and total failure of government policy

    25. Jealous-Hedgehog-734 on

      There’s five illegal cigarette vendors within walking distance of my local police station and they are not trying to hide their trade.

      We have to reset the price of legal cigarettes slightly lower than the smuggled ones to drive them out.

    26. SpitefulRedditScum on

      I moved from Brisbane to Sydney this year and haven’t found a black market here yet. Seems way more locked down in comparison to Brisbane.

      It’s currently $38 for a the cheapest pack of 20’s at colesworth

    27. ScissorNightRam on

      Is it true that every package of Manchester cigs is illegal?

      I see the empty packs as gutter rubbish all the time, and someone once told me there is actually no way to buy them legit

    28. Separate-Law-435 on

      If only we had lessons in history about trying to tax/prohibit something to the wahzoo.

      Who would have thought/s

    29. bruhhhhhhhhhhhh_h on

      I wonder / hope they accounted for the increasing quantity of nicotine in the “illegal” / disposable vapes.

      From a brief skim – cigarettes (blues) are 12-16 mg, reds edging up a bit over 20mg.

      The maximum non prescription is 20mg.

      Many of the disposables are hitting “5%” or 50mg, I’m aware of many being 10% 0r 100mg.

      It’s not like for like and there are other factors, but raw number wise vapes, certainly, have more nicotine. Does this represent more people ingesting more tobacco products and vapes at what kind of ratio ?

      I would say I’ve seen more people vaping but a shitload less pumping durries. My local bottle store just dropped selling them completely.

      IMHO banning the “actual” OG vape stores with reusable, better made devices and consumable elements and at least a kind of rudimentary validation in so far as known “brands”, flavour and such – just lead to an onslaught of e-waste, cheeky battery juice mixes, poor quality electronics and the commercial viability of using rechargeable li-ion batteries in a disposable device.

      Along with a raft of other chaos, fire bombings and rogue activity that was unprecedented outside of the repeated examples globally throughout previous decades, the current time and likely core elements of human behaviour.

    30. plutoforprez on

      Thought they were too expensive to buy at the $25 mark so never did. I smoke more now than I do back then, $10 is too good not to.

    32. Einnnnnnnnnnnn on

      And vascular disease related amputations have plummeted.

      The tax and the plain packaging are good policies.

      They will be ideal when the tax haul from tobacco is zero.

      Now, arrest the illegal tobacco shops and importers and fine the Bejeezus out of them.

    33. SJammie on

      This was always going to happen. I hate smoking, but this was a very foreseeable outcome. Smokers are addicts, eventually they’ll have to find the hit in a way they can afford.

    34. myztry on

      The Government’s border control is an absolute joke when you understand just what a massive volume of material that 80% of the tobacco market is. We don’t even share land borders with any other nation so there’s no hope of keeping the real nasty stuff out at this level of incompetence.

    35. SilverBBear on

      I quit from $4 to $5 a pack I though – thats awesome just jack up the price and everyone will quit. Yeh Nah. There was a limit to this measure.

    39. enduringandsurviving on

      What I see that isn’t mentioned or covered regarding the blackmarket is the major lack of quality control in illegal product.

      Some of the darts smell and taste like straight formaldehyde.
      Others have a moth ball odour to the paper.
      I’ve heard heavy smokers buying packets of reds tell me there’s no “hit” of nicotine in it and they can smoke half a pack unsatisfied.
      Been shown there’s large chunks of “tobacco” that don’t burn properly.
      I’ve seen pieces of paper ripped up in the tobacco of emptied out smokes with one peice that said “happiness” which implied they’re chopping up, rerolling and rebranding double happiness for shitty replica name brand packaging.
      I’ve had people tell me after a pack of black market that they have no sense of taste or can’t feel their tongue anymore.
      Others don’t need to say anything, I can hear the deep chested coughing fits clearly.

      I understand some think “oh poor smokers choosing that” but these anecdotes are from old age pensioners. People who were told smoking was okay in their time and had it sold, pushed and made socially acceptable in forming habit.
      They’re not able to go ask Sheryl at the “novelty store” for a refund or their money back nor are they able to intimidate honest business.
      They’re choosing to literally suck up unregulated unknown poisons because of ingrained habit and the fortnightly budget being sunk into a carton of unknown risk that they can’t refund.
      And some keep going back to buy more because they’re not able to get a new source.

      Any so called “Tax” in the name of funding healthcare is bullshit.
      Removing affordability for a hooked older generation, enabling access to the younger generation with removing vapes or adding cheap blackmarket and giving a majority of people no choice but to put their money and faith in criminals that have no regard for damage or health fall out is going to cost the government and health services much more than whatever they get out of the 20% left paying out the nose for the rort.
      Not even attempting the age out law like New Zealand or other deterrent tactics first is such a shame.

    40. WeissPyre on

      You mean making the legal cigarettes outrageously expensive by taxing the fuck out of them just drove people to the black market? 

      What?! Who could have foreseen this?!

      /s government played itself. 

    42. Mr_Lumbergh on

      That’s what happens when you put de-facto prohibition on things. Prohibition has worked approximately zero times historically.

    43. t_25_t on

      “Criminals” doing more to help the working class people than the politicians voted in by the public.

      We get taxed to the hilt on everything.

    44. Old_Assistant4187 on

      That’ll happen when you learn absolutely nothing from the war on drugs or alcohol prohibition. Our leadership is brain-dead as fuck.

    45. kooky_kabuki on

      Who are these people buying the legal stuff?? Are they made of money? 

    46. deadhead-steve on

      Lol what a surprise! Like no shit Sherlock what the fuck else you think we gonna do?

    47. AngrehPossum on

      Well you did price it out of the market. By a long way. You’re doing it with Alcohol too.