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Australia risks losing ‘war on nicotine’ in same way as war on drugs as illegal tobacco sales explode (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

I suspect the high tax no longer has much of a harm reduction/uptake suppression utility, and that the Aus government secretly knows this, but they are hopelessly addicted to the revenue so will enact overbearing new laws to protect the income stream.

The reasonble approach is to wean nicotine users off black market product by removing the price disparities. The only way to do that is by accepting a much lower tax intake than the current arbitrary, punitive one (perhaps VAT * 1.5 or 2?)

I remember the Australian government crowing about their world-first plain packaging initiative many years ago. Talk about fighting the last war lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

I suspect the high tax no longer has much of a harm reduction/uptake suppression utility, and that the Aus government secretly knows this, but they are hopelessly addicted to the revenue so will enact overbearing new laws to protect the income stream.

Well that depends...at what point is the revenue stream under threat because of the significant price disparity? My understanding is that it has dropped significantly, which one would imagine is a cause for concern if revenue is a key consideration.

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