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People Will Die

by | Oct 4, 2026 | Podcast Insights, Politics, Public Health, Vaping | 0 comments

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People Will DieIt’s sometimes said that satire is dead. I don’t think that is quite the case, fortunately.

But when you see a video from 9 years ago, and we will put this in the description as per usual, and 9 years later, what it’s parodying is even more the case. So, Remy, who’s an American comic, very funny. You can find his videos on YouTube and on Reason.com. No, I do not get any commission. He has a brilliant video from about 2017. It runs for about 2 minutes and is really worth a look. It focuses on America because he’s American, with a number of politicians putting up proposals and suggesting that anybody who questions them must want people to die. I don’t want to give too many spoilers, but for example, he’s got a road sign up reading “Maximum Speed: Four Miles Per Hour.” There are too many road collisions, so that’s his proposal, and if you don’t agree, you want people to die. There are a few other examples along those lines. It sounds ridiculous and extreme, but these arguments get trotted out. We’ve seen quite recently in Australia the Coalition follow, I suppose, the lead of One Nation. They’ll probably say they came up with it themselves. For full disclosure, I was asked to give my opinion to a committee looking at the issue of tobacco excise and regulation in Australia. I was asked to present via Zoom. Again, I didn’t get paid for that.

So it could be argued that they came to it independently. But essentially, what they’ve come up with is a new approach to the failed policies we currently have. If the aim is to reduce smoking, we have not achieved that. Smoking rates in Australia are increasing, although this is sometimes obscured by selective use of data. Wastewater data has shown quite clearly that nicotine consumption is up 440%. Since 2017, 80% of the total nicotine market is now illicit. We have a rising excise amount. Australia has the highest per-stick cigarette prices in the world. Yet tobacco excise revenue has halved from about $16 billion in 2019-20 to about $8 billion this year and is projected to fall to around $4 billion next year. So more people are smoking, or at least not significantly fewer. Excise taxes have increased substantially, while revenue has fallen by half and is expected to fall by three quarters next year. Adding to this, we’ve had the 300th firebombing of a tobacco-related small business in just the last couple of weeks. We’re talking about hundreds of millions, probably billions, of dollars being generated by organized criminal gangs. Essentially, think of Prohibition-era America in the 1920s. That’s what we have in Australia in the 2020s. Clearly, the lesson has not been learned. The proposal put forward by the Coalition, currently the opposition in Australia, was met with the response that people are going to die. What?

We’ve already seen deaths through firebombings. In the most recent incident, somebody was left in a burning car. There have been other deaths, significant property damage, and it is more a matter of good fortune than good planning that more people have not been killed. Yet somehow, trying to deal effectively with the black market is supposed to cause people to die. This is one of those situations where you seriously think, “Remy, you need to come to Australia and make another video.” I genuinely enjoy his videos because these people have become a parody of themselves. All the usual suspects came out from the government, the Greens, and the public health establishment with claims that people are going to die if we crack down on criminal activity. Honestly, you almost become lost for words, and regular listeners will know that being lost for words is not something that normally happens to me. So what’s their argument? Their argument is that more people will smoke if the price of legal cigarettes is brought down to something closer to the cost of black-market cigarettes. There are many problems with this argument, but the biggest is that if you look at other countries where taxes are not as high as they are in Australia, and where a legal market functions properly, smoking rates are falling. This is particularly true in the UK, Japan, Sweden, other parts of the European Union, and New Zealand. Another reason smoking rates are falling in those countries while Australia’s are not is because they allow access to the world’s most popular and effective stop-smoking method: vaping. Regular listeners will know where I’m going with this.

These countries make it far easier to access vaping products, which are estimated to be at least 95% less harmful than smoking. The Cochrane Collaboration recently released another review confirming what it has found before. For those unfamiliar with it, Cochrane does not conduct original research. Instead, it analyzes and combines published studies to draw broader conclusions. Once again, it found vaping to be the most effective method for quitting smoking. Now, if you don’t smoke, you shouldn’t start vaping. Some people will. If they do, it’s better they vape than smoke. Better still is to do neither. The best thing for your lungs is fresh air.

But we don’t live in an ideal world. We certainly don’t live in the idealized bubble that public health bureaucrats seem to inhabit. These people genuinely have no idea. It’s uncomfortable to say, but either they don’t know better or they do know better and continue saying these things anyway. I sincerely hope it’s the former.

There’s some excuse for not knowing. There’s no excuse for knowing better and still opposing measures that help people stop smoking. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can simply look at New Zealand.

For Australians, it’s just “across the ditch.” The approach there is logical and sensible. Vaping is not encouraged. It’s not advertised. It cannot be sold to people under 18. The framework is broadly similar to what applies to alcohol. And it works.

There is very little illegal or bootleg alcohol in Australia. Why?

Because taxation is proportionate and access is regulated but available. Adults can purchase it, children cannot, and while underage access cannot be eliminated entirely, it can be minimized. The same approach can be applied to vaping.

The black market doesn’t care about age restrictions. Children can access vapes and cigarettes through illegal channels far more easily than through legitimate retailers. What the government has effectively done is outsource nicotine policy to criminals. Now that the Coalition and One Nation are proposing to bring that market back under government regulation and out of criminal hands, we’re told people are going to die. It simply makes no sense.

You don’t need to be a scientist or medical expert to understand that tackling criminal activity, which has coincided with increased smoking, is unlikely to make smoking rates worse. This has been demonstrated repeatedly in every jurisdiction that has gone down this path. Australia is not breaking new ground here.

What we’re really talking about is accepting reality. It’s also worth remembering that some of these policies began under the previous Coalition government. Former Health Minister Greg Hunt came very close to introducing measures similar to those later implemented by his Labor successor, Mark Butler. In 2020, Hunt was ultimately blocked from doing so, which at the time was a good outcome. However, you could argue the issue was merely postponed, because the restrictions on access to less harmful products eventually arrived anyway. So the Coalition cannot claim complete innocence. That said, recognizing a mistake and changing course is a sign of maturity. Refusing to acknowledge overwhelming evidence that a policy is failing, and in fact producing the opposite of its intended outcome, is something else entirely. You can draw your own conclusions about how best to describe that behavior.

Nothing is likely to change tomorrow or next week. Partly because the parties now advocating change are not currently in government. Interestingly, two state governments face elections within the next eight months: Victoria and New South Wales. Both have expressed concerns to their federal counterparts about the impact of sharply increasing excise taxes and their unintended consequences. What happens in those elections may or may not influence federal policy. Personally, I wouldn’t expect much movement because I think the positions have become too ideologically entrenched. Change is always difficult. Admitting you’re wrong appears to be especially difficult within bureaucracies, academia, and large public health organizations. When consulting patients, I often say, “This is my opinion, and it’s my best opinion today, but it is always possible that I’m wrong.” Nobody is right all the time.

When people dig their heels in despite overwhelming contradictory evidence and insist that they are right while the rest of the world is wrong, it doesn’t reflect well on them. Bottom line: this isn’t a new idea. Many of you have heard me say it before, but it bears repeating. Australia really just needs to adopt the New Zealand model. That is essentially what is now being proposed by the opposition parties. Reduce cigarette taxation to a sensible level, not eliminate it altogether. Some taxation remains appropriate. Make vaping products ordinary consumer products rather than prescription-only items. Doing so would make regulation far more straightforward. It won’t eliminate crime completely. Nothing will. But if the illegal market shrinks significantly, authorities will be in a much stronger position to control criminal activity and reduce its influence. It’s a straightforward solution.

None of it is difficult.

All of it has already been done elsewhere.

Whether Australia adopts it in the short term, I unfortunately have serious doubts. In the medium term, based on current trends, I am somewhat more optimistic. Thanks for reading Dr. Joe Unplugged. If you enjoyed this podcast, please like, share, and consider subscribing. Tell your friends. If there are topics you’d like to see covered, get in touch through the chat or at [email protected].

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