Alan Gor 12 March 2025
Mark Butler’s latest statements on vaping and illegal tobacco demonstrate once again that the Australian government is more committed to ideological crusades than evidence-based public health policy. His approach of banning vapes while waging an unwinnable war against illegal cigarettes ignores both global evidence and basic principles of harm reduction. Worse, it actively harms Australian smokers by making safer alternatives harder to access while allowing criminal syndicates to flourish.
Vaping Decline? A Manufactured Crisis
Butler claims that vaping has decreased “quite markedly,” but at what cost? The government’s heavy-handed prohibition tactics, ranging from raids to import restrictions, have predictably led to a thriving black market in vapes, just as it has in tobacco. The supposed reduction in vaping among young people does not justify depriving adult smokers of a life-saving alternative. Vaping rates may be declining among schoolchildren (if the government’s cherry-picked numbers are even accurate). Still, among adults, the reality is starkly different: ex-smokers are being forced back to cigarettes or underground sources of nicotine.
This is public health malpractice. The UK, New Zealand, and many European nations have embraced vaping as the most effective way to reduce smoking rates. Australia, meanwhile, clings to outdated prohibitionist dogma that has never worked for any other substance.
A War on Smokers, Not on Crime
Butler’s announcement of $160 million in enforcement spending is an admission of failure. For years, Australia has relentlessly hiked tobacco taxes, pushing the cost of a legal cigarette pack to an obscene $70. The result? A booming illicit market, gang violence, and firebombings of tobacco shops. And now, instead of acknowledging that prohibition fuels crime, Butler doubles down, throwing more money at enforcement while failing to address the root cause of the black market: the government’s policies.
Let’s not forget the staggering cost of this failure. The Australian government has now spent over $1 billion on anti-smoking and anti-vaping enforcement, yet things are only getting worse. Illegal cigarettes are flooding the market, gang-related violence is escalating, and smoking rates are rising where vaping restrictions are most aggressively enforced. What exactly has this eye-watering sum of taxpayer money achieved? The government is pouring money into failed policies instead of acknowledging that prohibition does not work.
The parallels with vaping are undeniable. Just as tobacco prohibition has enriched organised crime, the government’s vape bans have done the same. Australians seeking nicotine now have two choices: return to smoking or buy unregulated products from the same criminal networks that supply illegal cigarettes. Public health is being sacrificed on the altar of ideological purity.
Again, I bring your attention to the increasing smoking rates in South Australia. Despite Butler’s grand claims of progress, South Australia has seen a rise in smoking rates, the first increase in years. This is not a coincidence; it is a direct consequence of making vaping harder to access. When safer alternatives are restricted, people revert to deadly combustible tobacco. The government cannot claim success while simultaneously presiding over a public health disaster of its own making.
The Hypocrisy of “Public Health” Rhetoric
Butler’s assertion that illicit cigarettes are “damaging our public health efforts” is laughable given his government’s role in creating the problem. When legal nicotine alternatives like vaping are effectively banned, where do smokers turn? To unregulated, high-risk products. The claim that vaping bans protect youth while ignoring their impact on adult smokers is pure propaganda.
If the government were serious about reducing smoking, it would legalise and regulate vaping properly. Instead, it treats all nicotine use as a moral failing rather than a public health issue. It’s the same failed approach that led to disastrous drug policies in the past: punish, criminalise, and pretend the problem will go away. It won’t.
Conclusion: A Policy Built on Lies
Australia’s anti-vaping hysteria has nothing to do with protecting public health. It is about controlling what adults can choose to use, controlling the narrative, and controlling the lucrative tax revenue stream from smoking. The government knows full well that vaping is far safer than smoking, yet it prefers to drive nicotine users into the arms of criminals rather than admit its mistakes.
If Butler truly wanted to curb smoking and dismantle the black market, he would follow the lead of countries that have successfully reduced smoking through harm reduction, not prohibition. But that would require prioritising science over ideology, something this government has proven incapable of doing.