The Australian government has been urged by public health experts to set a date to ban cigarette retail sales through retailers including supermarkets, and find new ways of boosting revenue without relying on tobacco excise taxes.
It comes as research published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday found 1,466 respondents (over half) of a Victorian Cancer Council survey agreed with phasing out the sale of cigarettes in retail outlets.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands has passed laws preventing supermarkets from selling cigarettes from 2024, New Zealand has proposed new measures that include significantly reducing the number of tobacco retail outlets and possibly removing nicotine from cigarettes, while California cities Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach ended tobacco sales on 1 January this year.
Although Australia has some of the tightest tobacco legislation, with packaging laws and mandatory graphic warning labels, public health researchers say policymakers should turn their attention to supply.