Harm Reduction Policy Built Australia's Tobacco Black Market

Australia ran the most successful anti-smoking campaign the world had ever seen. Not one of the most successful, the most successful. We reduced daily tobacco consumption from around 52 per cent of all Australians aged 16 and over in the late 1940s down to around 13 per cent just a few years ago. That is not a small achievement. That is decades of disciplined, consistent, evidence-based public health work paying off in one of the most sustained behaviour change campaigns any country has ever managed. And then we watched it get systematically undermined. (More: WRD News)