Malcolm Baalman
AIHW reports that daily smoking has fallen to 5.6% in Australia
This is a really, really good outcome.
Australians have done well – very well – at kicking tobacco usage.
Every three years there is a major national report on smoking rates, and today it shows that the key ‘age14+ daily smoking’ statistic – which has been tracked for decades – has dropped from 8.3% to 5.6%.
That makes Australia now one of the lowest-smoking countries in the world.
The National Drug Strategy Household Survey is compiled by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia’s premier health data agency. Their survey methodology has been high-quality and consistent since 1991 for this report series.
This cycle, over 17,000 Australians were surveyed about their tobacco, vaping, alcohol and other drug use. The high-level tobacco data has been released today.
As statistics go, the graph above shows a remarkably consistent trend over the decades; tobacco use is steadily disappearing from Australian society. We could all sense this, of course, in daily life.
The heroes of this long-term story are the millions of Australians who have successfully quit, and perhaps most importantly of all, the generations of teenagers who have resisted even taking up smoking.
These social trends, combined with the progressive mortality of earlier higher-smoking generations (many dying earlier than they might precisely because of tobacco) make the direction of this data more or less inevitable.
The outcome is nonetheless impressive given that we’ve been afraid that two nicotine industry activities in recent years – massive promotion of vaping, and illegal retail supply of tobacco at low prices – might hinder the long-term trend. They haven’t. In fact, these figures suggest the decline in smoking has sped up since 2019.
Promotion of ‘recreational’ vaping, especially to younger people not already addicted to nicotine, is a worldwide phenomenon over the past decade. Only from 2024 has the Australian legal framework shifted to fight back hard. And on this, the Institute report shows an impressive result; daily vape use (aged 14+) was at 3.5% in 2022, and has stabilised at 3.6% in late 2025. There are very welcome indications of a significant reduction in 18-24-cohort vaping uptake in the past few years.
Vaping remains a serious health problem, especially in the mid-late 20s age cohort. The scale of the problem shows up in wastewater chemical analysis. Skilled analysis by Australian researchers, such as the environmental health sciences team at the University of Queensland, is getting increasingly good at measuring the amount of different nicotine and other biomarkers in sewage. These can measure the amount of nicotine just from tobacco use, and also the total amount of nicotine from use of any product containing nicotine.
Data from the first form (tobacco nicotine) showed tobacco use declining up to the last sampling period in 2023, which is consistent with the survey data revealed this week by the AIHW. Analysis of sewage samples collected in 2024 and 2025 for the tobacco-specific biomarker are yet to be published.
Results on the total amount of nicotine in sewage, however, show it has been increasing over time. A recent ABS experimental compilation of the data estimated that in 2025, compared to 2017, the nicotine total had grown by 40%, while the Australian population had only grown 14%. That can be rescaled to a per-capita increase of around 23% over 8 years.
Making inferences from these different data sources is a bit of a rough analysis, but the most likely conclusion is that vaping products with high nicotine content are the basis of the growth in total amount of nicotine in sewage.
If the number of individuals who vape has flatlined in the past three years, and fewer people are smoking, it seems to follow that each person vaping is individually consuming more nicotine, either through vaping more (more ‘puffs’), or through the products having ever-increasing nicotine content. (This week’s report does not get into details of consumption rates, but the AIHW indicates it will release more data on this in August).
Hooking young people on high nicotine doses is, of course, exactly what we would expect from the nicotine industry. Lifelong user dependency is their profit model. Young people who vape are 3-5 times more likely to also begin to smoke.
The other anticipated threat to getting smoking rates down in recent years has been the malignance of the tobacco industry and its Australian retail sector in selling illegally sourced, cheap cigarettes. Once again, this week’s Institute report provides an up-to-date estimate about what proportion of the population are buying illicit tobacco, and it comes in at 3.8% (as at late 2025) have bought at least some illicit product, up from 2.3% in 2022-23. This is equal to 34% of people who smoke tobacco.
Almost every nation in the world has striven to eliminate cheap illegal cigarettes from the market. High tobacco prices protect against youth uptake and drive the motivation behind quitting. Clearly this policy has done its job in Australia.
Our tax regime is not based on any point-of-sale tax on purchasers; importers, wholesalers, and end-retailers each set prices along the supply chain to maximise their profits. We nominally impose an ‘excise duty’ on tobacco products produced in Australia, but there are no legal producers here, so no excise duty is collected.
We impose a matching ‘customs duty’ on imported tobacco, and about 98% of the quantity imported (and duty paid) is by the three primary giant multinational tobacco corporations. (This is the mob currently lobbying hard for a billion-dollar customs duty tax cut for themselves.)
Importers and retailers make high profits on tobacco products, but they do not pay for any of the health care costs, quit smoking support, public education campaigns, clean-up of littered packs and butts, policing of illegal sales or compensate consumers and their families for the years of life lost from smoking, or pain and suffering from tobacco-related diseases.
Lowering prices of tobacco – whether by tax changes or illegal cheap suppliers – can have serious adverse impacts:
- Increasing the total amount of tobacco that people consume, for the same spending
- Lowering the motivation for smokers for quitting – the only path that can protect against further risk of disease and early death
- Lowering the powerful cost barrier that prevents young people from starting smoking.
Happily, the Institute report this week gives us clear data that the latter two malign effects haven’t happened in Australia in recent years to a large degree. It is, however, possible that lower prices through illegal retailing are causing many smokers to consume more.
The state governments have, to various degrees, sharply lifted their game in combating illegal cheap trading of smuggled cigarettes and vaping products in recent years. (Ratings: very well done, Queensland and South Australia, but Victoria – lift your game, you are the last and weakest link!).
Even with this crime-control effort going on, there is clearly a need for a major reframing of which retail businesses can be trusted to sell tobacco products within the law, and which should simply be closed down. As a result of criminal activity, many of these ‘retailers’ have become a direct threat to staff, neighbouring small businesses and homes, and shopper safety.
The smoking rate findings released today also powerfully demonstrates that it is possible for a nation to drive tobacco use down without resorting to the dangerous idea of making vapes freely availability.
Australia’s national policy framework on tobacco is clearly working where it matters most – helping people to quit smoking to improve their health and finances, and protecting kids from starting.
The public health community has been behind this all the way, but political leaders across the country have also held the line for decades – with a well-deserved special mention for the leadership of the current national Health Minister Mark Butler. Long may this continue.
For support to quit nicotine, visit quit.org.au, or call 13 7848.
Members of the public can report suspected illicit tobacco activity to:
- Crime Stoppers online, or on 1800 333 000, for suspicious or criminal activity
- Australian Border Force Border Watch (here) for suspected importation or smuggling activity
- the relevant state or territory tobacco regulator for suspected illegal retail sales
(Reports to Border Watch and Crime Stoppers can be made anonymously.)
Malcolm Baalman is the Public Health Association of Australia’s Policy and Advocacy Manager.
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