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Writer's picturePippa Starr

Welcome Home Big Tobacco!

Feb 29, 2024

by Pippa Starr


Those dam pesky vapes holding back the Australian budget from achieving its best chance of maximising revenue from the sales of cigarettes are no longer going to be interrupted!


It’s great news for the quit industry who are looking forward to a lucrative future on the back of around a billion dollars worth of public money to spend on virtue signalling and pretending they are trying to help smokers quit!

With yesterday’s announcement by Mark Butler stating he will push a bill through to ban any further sales of vapes in Australia outside a chemist setting by July, finally vapers can make their transition back to smoking!


That means more money for public roads, chasing criminal immigrants on the loose, paying for the $40million campaign to tell the public about how good the tax cuts are and covering the costs of the failed voice to parliament campaign.

All on the back of causing more deaths, disease and cancer! It's winning policy that the funeral industry and big pharma companies selling Chemotherapy products applaud!


The highest selling chemist vape being sold by is by a company called Liber under the brand “Nicovape”, and is now set in place and ready to disappoint most vapers with the huge lack of value it presents, that is after they have jumped through hoops to find a doctor to provide a prescription. With links to Phillip Morris this company is set to boom!


Wait what? Please welcome back home, Big Tobacco!

It's doesn't stop with links to PMI but also Imperial tobacco.


The Govt in Australia has been caught out in a play on vapers to direct them to mainly big tobacco companies vape devices! Yes seriously!


This isn't news either, as "Legalise Vaping" broke this store back in July last year.

Here it is here:

"We’re blowing the lid on the fake pharma companies that are using the prescription model to control what you buy and where you buy it.


These companies are backed by big money and big influence.


Last week, we brought you shocking revelations around Liber Pharmaceuticals (Nicovape), including its Head of Regulatory and External Affairs working for tobacco giant Philip Morris International for over 11 years.


Since then, we’ve received dozens of tip-offs from LVA subscribers about other fake pharma companies and their associations with big tobacco.


We just never thought it’d be this big.


On Friday night we received an anonymous report that Wild by Instinct, which launched in Australia on 7 October 2021 (less than a week after prescription vaping laws commenced) had an employee with links to a tobacco company.


We’ve done some digging. It wasn’t just one. It was three.


And they all came from the same tobacco company.


There is a lot to cover here, so we’ll try to be brief.


On 7 October 2021, Wild by Instinct was launched in Australia.


In its media release, Wild listed its executive team.


Chief Operations Officer – Wayne Jones

Chief Product Officer – Paul Gerza

General Manager – Matthew Landau

So, we checked each name, to verify the tip-off.

What we found was shocking. Between the three of them, they had all worked for Imperial Tobacco or its associated entities immediately before launching Wild in Australia.


Wild’s General Manager was at Imperial Tobacco for over 18 years, its Chief Operations Officer worked for Imperial and its associated entities for over 20 years, and its Chief Product Manager was the Marketing Manager for Imperial before Wild.


So that’s three for three.


But it gets worse.


We later learned of an online prescriber, Best + Well, which launched in Australia in January of this year. Its website lists only Wild vapes for prescription.


So, we checked who owns the site.


Surprise, surprise; it’s Wild.


Just like with Liber’s so-called Smokefree Clinic, Best + Well is registered to the company that owns the Wild by Instinct trademark, From the Field Wellness IP Pty Ltd.


But that’s not all.


The person to whom Best + Well is registered, Wilhelm David, is also a former Imperial Tobacco employee.


Having worked for Imperial Tobacco for 18 years, Wilhelm is listed as a co-founder of From the Fields Pharmaceutical Pty Ltd and a co-founder of Best + Well, as is Wayne Jones of Imperial Tobacco, who also listed as a co-founder of From the Fields Pharmaceutical Pty Ltd.


There are serious questions to be asked about the involvement of tobacco personnel in these fake pharma companies; not to mention the conflicts of interest of fake pharma owning their own prescribers.


Wild kicked off in Australia less than week after prescription vaping started in October 2021.


All of the senior employees we can identify were working for Imperial Tobacco or one of its subsidiaries prior to launching Wild in Australia.


And the trademark holder of Wild owns Best + Well, Wild’s online prescriber, with at least two of From the Fields’ co-founders listed as co-founders of Best + Well.


This is not on.


We need answers."


But wait there's more!....... There's also that other Phillip Morris vape brand "Veev" that is also available in chemists with a prescription!


On July 7 last year journalist Melissa Davey blew the lid on them trying to get the jump on the inevitable railroading of vape sales in chemists.


She exposed: "VEEV marketing materials seen by Guardian Australia offer pharmacists an “introductory offer” to supply the nicotine pods and devices at an 80% margin on the condition they sign a supply agreement with Philip Morris International (PMI) directly."


So here we are folks, a day before we see all imports on all vapes banned, with vapes only available from chemists that are predominantly sold via Big Tobacco companies!


Slow clap.....


All along you bought the Govt rhetoric that vaping was a big tobacco conspiracy to hook another generation to nicotine, yet all along the Govt was setting up a winning position for Big Tobacco!


You were played!

You've been lied to and misinformed about the harms of vaping!


The real ploy appears to always have been to to help the Govt get more of that sweet tobacco revenue!

"Welcome Home Big Tobacco!"


Only problem they have now is containing the massive black market on tobacco & vapes not sold by big tobacco, an impossible task, and they know this!


What a blundering mess this Govt has fast become!



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