Malcolm Baalman
The tobacco industry is running a targeted campaign to persuade the government to freeze or reverse the level of taxation on tobacco products, based around leveraging the existence of an illicit market into a political argument. There is nothing particularly recent or novel about the latest Australian campaign. It’s the same kind of lobbying campaign that the industry’s run around the world over many years.
There is another Intouch post on the illicit market arguments here. But part of the campaign also makes claims about changes in rates of tobacco and nicotine consumption, and this post provides some context.
Smoking rates
Australian policy interventions over the last two decades have reduced consumption of tobacco and other nicotine products. The key positive impact is that smoking rates (the strongest driver of harm and mortality) have steadily declined since the late 20th century.
The latest Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) Smoking and e-cigarettes report shows that the rate of daily smoking among Australians aged 14 and over has declined steadily over many years to 8.3%. That’s the lowest since the second world war. Vaping consumption is, of course, significantly higher than 10 years ago, following a massive amount of tobacco industry promotion, especially to young people. But recent evidence shows it’s falling again after national intervention in 2024.
Major phases of intervention, such as the reforms of 2012, demonstrably contributed to sustaining that decline in consumption. The most rate, 8.3%, achieves the National Tobacco Strategy goal of a rate below 10% by 2025. The next national target is to reach a rate below 5% by 2030.
There are clear demographic elements which contribute to this. Well over 85% of the population don’t regularly smoke, and aren’t likely to change that behaviour. The main demand factors for total national smoking rates are:
- Steady reductions in consumption by long-term regular smokers in older age cohorts
- Declining smoking initiation among younger people (including children)
Data shows that Australia’s older cohorts are steadily reducing their rates of smoking, from a level well above the average population result. The generations who began smoking at higher rates prior to the introduction of targeted policy interventions in the 1970s are dying, many from smoking-related diseases. Other middle- and older-age people have successfully quit smoking.
Younger people’s rates of starting smoking are also trending down. Around 1% of children aged 14-17, and around 6% of young adults, regularly smoke, the AIHW data says.
AIHW: Daily smoking by age, 2010 to 2022–2023
Source: NDSHS 2022–2023, Table 2.4.
Total nicotine consumption rates
The tobacco industry has claimed tobacco controls are failing because recent nicotine detections in wastewater have shown higher nicotine consumption readings than in 2016. This refers to reports prepared by the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, (ACIC) monitoring the presence of various drug chemicals in wastewater. The latest report (2025) provides data from August and October 2024.
But as the chart below shows, there is no strong long-term trend of either rising of falling total nicotine consumption. Rather, moderate waves of consumption change over the eight-year period. This degree of variance is not a basis for making major policy change such as freezing or cutting tobacco taxes.
ACIC: Nicotine detected in wastewater, 2016 to 2024
It’s important to note that the commission’s report states: “The estimate is expressed as nicotine in this report as the method cannot distinguish between nicotine from tobacco, e-cigarettes, or nicotine replacement therapies such as patches and gums.”
In fact, data points for the past few years are slightly above the eight-year average, but this doesn’t justify cherry-picking comparisons between different years to claim a trend which is simply not present.
We know from AIHW data that smoking rates have trended steadily down while vaping rates began rising rapidly from around 2020 through to 2024. Vaping products often contain concentrations of nicotine far higher than traditional tobacco products.
Drawing on AIHW and other data, we can infer that vaping is the cause of an increasing share of nicotine levels detected from around 2019-20 up to mid-2024. It would follow that the contribution of traditional tobacco to the nicotine total must be declining – which aligns with the AIHW data.
Focusing on the results in Victoria, the state believed to have the biggest problem with illicit tobacco, the commission’s report shows that latest capital city (Melbourne) reading is close to the average for the whole period. The latest estimate in Victorian regional areas is in fact in the lower third of the data points since 2017.
In short, there is no case that tax policy is causing any increase in tobacco product consumption. In fact, the national policy is clearly causing consumption to fall.
The impact of vaping consumption
Evidence has made clear in recent years that young people who vapes are five times more likely to subsequently try cigarettes. Researchers have also found that the rise of vaping since around 2010 coincided with a slowing of the rate of decline in youth smoking, although happily that rate has not actually risen.
This concerning pattern was why Australia’s governments acted to block vapes supply to young Australians. The reforms agreed in 2023 and implemented through 2024 maintained access to vaping as an option for long-term smokers trying to quit in regulated conditions. But the primary intent was to stop children and young adults from starting vaping and smoking.
Encouragingly, early indications suggest that these reforms have rapidly reduced youth vaping rates. The Generation Vape Project has monitored vaping and tobacco product use for years. Its ‘Wave 8’ results released in July 2025 are the first available that can detect changes since the mid-2024 vaping law reforms:
“Wave 8 data reveal promising trends. The proportion of young people who have never vaped remains high at 85.4%, and smoking rates are at their lowest across all survey waves, with 94.0% reporting never having smoked. Curiosity about vaping continues to decline, with less than a third of young people who have never vaped expressing interest in vaping. Social norms are also shifting, with fewer young people reporting that their friends vape. Qualitative interviews reinforce this shift, with participants expressing embarrassment, shame, and a desire to dissociate from the label “vaper.”
That’s very good news.
Malcolm Baalman is the Public Health Association of Australia’s Policy and Advocacy Manager
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