Quiet, children. The grown ups are talking.

Accelerationists believe that things have to get worse before they get better and that the faster things get worse, the sooner people will wake up and demand radical change.

I've always been sceptical about this because, as Adam Smith said, there is a lot of ruin in a nation. Some people will never change their minds or admit that they were wrong.

Australian tobacco policy is a prime example. Even the government now accepts that most of the cigarettes and nearly all the vapes in Australia are sold on the black market. The number of firebombings linked to the illicit trade is nearing 300. But, as this article shows, politicians and 'public health' academics cannot tear themselves away from the script that says that the real problem is BiG ToBaCcO.

 

Australia’s illegal cigarette trade has exploded into a full-scale criminal economy, prompting fears within the legal tobacco industry that its industry is being pushed towards extinction.

The debacle is hitting the big tobacco giants hard. So much so that a representative of Philip Morris International privately warned a Senate inquiry this week that its days were numbered in Australia.

... At the centre of the crisis is Australia’s booming underground cigarette market, now estimated to account for as much as 60 per cent of all tobacco sales nationwide.

Authorities say the scale of the problem is staggering. Nicotine is widely accepted to be one of the toughest addictions to crack, and broader cost-of-living pressures have encouraged smokers to look elsewhere as service station packs skyrocket.

The issue has merged into the disposable vape market, which has exploded in Australia over the past decade.

... But despite the massive enforcement effort, the black market continues growing.

Australia’s soaring tobacco excise — which is among the highest in the world — has pushed cigarette prices beyond $70 a pack in some cases, creating an enormous financial incentive for organised crime groups flooding the country with cheap illegal products.

In recent years, the illicit trade has become increasingly tied to gang violence, extortion rackets and a wave of tobacco shop firebombings across Melbourne and Sydney as syndicates battle for control of the market.

 

Oh dear, what a mess. But everyone knows that "world-leading" tobacco taxes caused the problem and, therefore, that cutting taxes is the way to tackle it. The government, the tobacco companies and the public all have an interest in dealing with this issue, but when a representative of Philip Morris said the bleeding obvious, left-wing politicians jumped down his throat.

 

The Philip Morris representative argued during the Senate inquiry that lowering tobacco excise could help undercut criminal operators by making legal cigarettes more competitive again.

That sparked fierce backlash from health advocates and Labor MPs, who criticised Coalition senators for allowing the hearing to take place behind closed doors despite Australia’s obligations under the World Health Organisation tobacco control framework.

The secret hearing turned combative after Coalition senator Jonathon Duniam asked the representative what Australia could face “in this dystopian world in 2030, when all tobacco or nicotine is illegal”.

The company warned organised crime could effectively take over the country’s nicotine supply chain if current trends continued, saying the legal market was becoming “unsafe and definitely unsustainable”.

But Labor senator Dorinda Cox aggressively challenged the company over whether any of its products were ending up in the illicit market.

“Are you able to guarantee to the Australian Senate that none of your tobacco that you produce ends up in Australia’s illicit market?” she asked.

When the representative pointed to anti-diversion controls and counterfeit products, Senator Cox fired back: “How do you know that if you don’t have any production controls in place? That doesn’t make sense at all.”

 

Tobacco companies can't control what people do with their products once they've been sold, but since the big sellers on Australia's black market are Chinese brands and brands like Manchester which are not made by 'Big Tobacco', it seems safe to say that Senator Cox is barking up the wrong tree.

 

But she is a beacon of common sense compared to the man from the Green Party...

 

Greens senator Jordon Steele-John went further still, comparing the company’s appearance before the inquiry to “inviting mosquitoes to give evidence at an inquiry related to the prevention of the spread of malaria”.

 

Sounds like someone's been given his lines by a "public health" activist, doesn't it? It's an analogy that doesn't work well at the best of times and is completely fatuous when the subject at hand is not the spread of smoking but the spread of illegal tobacco products. 

 

He later mocked Philip Morris’s argument that lowering tobacco excise could help weaken criminal operators.

“So, in your infinite wisdom, the best idea you can chuck at us … is lower the amount of tax that you pay,” he said.

 

I imagine he had a smug little smile on this face after delivering that zinger. Except that excise tax is paid by the customer, not the company.

 

“It’s a sophisticated submission that ends in the shocking conclusion that you should pay less tax. It’s not a serious proposal.”

 

They don't pay the tax, dumbass. 

 

Prof Garry Jennings of the Heart Foundation likened the scene to inviting “the enemy into the war room”.

“Big tobacco will simply argue for a reduction in excise so it can sell more cigarettes legally,” he said via the publication.

 

Yes, that's the idea, Garry. We want demand to move from the illicit, untaxed and violent market to the legal, taxed and peaceful market. The Australian government has paid a big enough price for listening to ideological halfwits like you. Now that the thing you said would never happen has happened spectacularly, it's time to listen to the grown ups.

 

University of Sydney public health professor Becky Freeman said the illicit trade was no longer a hidden “black market” operating in the shadows.

“It’s clearly an in-your-face market,” she said.

“It’s part of the business model now that retailers just sell untaxed illicit goods.”

 

Yes, we know, Becks. And it is, quite specifically, your fault. 

 

Australian tobacco control has been an absolute disaster but even now, with the fires burning around them, the political class cannot change the record. 'Big Tobacco' only controls a minority of tobacco sales now. The real Big Tobacco in Australia settles its disputes with guns. The legitimate tobacco companies should exit the country and leave them to it.

 

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