Anti-tobacco efforts looking to target supply

Following Australia’s success in reducing demand for cigarettes, the time has come for targeting supply, according to a story by Becky Freeman at medicalxpress.com.

In her story, first published in The Conversation, Freeman said that Australia had been hugely successful in reducing the incidence of daily smoking among people over the age of 14 from 24.3 percent in 1991 to 12.8 percent today.

This reduction in smoking had been largely achieved by curbing consumer demand for tobacco products through the imposition of tax increases, tobacco advertising bans, smoke-free public places, graphic health warnings and emotive anti-smoking mass-media campaigns.

‘While these tobacco demand-reduction strategies have been widely implemented in Australia and internationally, comparatively little has been done to control the sale and supply of tobacco products,’ she wrote. ‘This needs to change.’

Freeman discusses the possibility of transforming the tobacco market from one controlled by for-profit corporations that have a mandate to sell more cigarettes, to one managed by a not-for-profit enterprise that has a mandate to promote public health.

She discusses also price [but not tax] caps, regular reductions in the supply of tobacco products and limiting retail licences.

The full story is at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-06-weve-demand-cigarettes.html.