Queensland gets Dirty Ashtray award

The Queensland Government has received the Dirty Ashtray Award for its embarrassing failure to protect children from the sale of vaping products.

AMA Queensland President Dr Maria Boulton reluctantly accepted the AMA-ACOSH (Australian Council on Smoking and Health) award on behalf of the state government at the recent AMA National Conference.

“This is a particularly disappointing result as Queensland previously won the coveted National Tobacco Control Scoreboard Achievement Award for leading the nation in tobacco control measures four years in a row,” Dr Boulton said.

“Despite laws prohibiting the sale of illegal cigarettes to children, Queensland does not enforce the existing regulations, or require tobacco product retailers to be licensed.

“We have written to the Minister for Health and the Attorney-General, calling them to urgently rectify these failures before Queensland children become the next generation of smokers and suffer the associated catastrophic health results.

“Children and non-smokers must be protected not just from exposure to smoke but also to behaviours that normalise smoking.

“We have been so successful in reducing smoking rates by helping smokers to quit and helping prevent people from taking up smoking in the first place.

“Vaping is touted by big tobacco as a quit aid, but currently no liquid nicotine vaping products have been approved for use in Australia by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA).

“Vapes are clearly targeted at non-smokers, particularly teenagers. They are cheaper than tobacco, they are designed to appeal to younger users with colourful packaging and fruity flavours, they don’t smell like cigarettes, and they are easier to hide from parents.”

Since 2016, the rate of children and young people using e-cigarettes has grown rapidly with 21.7 per cent of young adults (aged 18–24) having used an e-cigarette device in 2020–21, but 83.3 per cent have never smoked.

“Many teens believe that vaping is less harmful than smoking but it is addictive and is associated with proven harms from inhaling heated gases into the lungs,” Dr Boulton said.

“While it is illegal in Australia to sell nicotine vaping products without a prescription, Queensland’s failure to enforce these laws means these products are easily accessible, including some falsely labelled ‘nicotine free’ and others that contain up to 50 times more nicotine than a cigarette.

“Even more alarming has been big tobacco’s recent effort to pay pharmacies to stock vaping products and refer patients to GPs for prescriptions.

“AMA Queensland condemns such efforts to compromise health practitioners’ integrity via inducements and incentives. However, without enforcement and licensing, there is a huge risk these efforts will be successful.

“We call on the government to act on the raft of legal changes proposed in its tobacco law reform discussion paper, including banning smoking in outdoor markets and school car parks, not allowing children in smoking areas in pubs and clubs, and requiring tobacco product retailers to be licensed.

“These reforms are long overdue and we support them wholeheartedly. Many of them have been in place in other states and territories for years, and we support extending them to Queensland.”

AMA Queensland plans to display the Dirty Ashtray Award at Cancer Council Queensland’s upcoming Health Expo at Parliament House to raise awareness among parliamentarians about this looming health crisis.

AMA Queensland’s response to the Queensland Government’s consultation on changes to tobacco laws is available here.

The AMA National Conference media release is available here.

Background

• The AMA-ACOSH Dirty Ashtray Award has been presented each year since 1994 to the jurisdiction or entity that does the least to prevent people from smoking.
• No award was presented in 2020 due to COVID.
• It is presented in conjunction with the National Tobacco Control Scoreboard Achievement Award for leading the nation in tobacco control measures.
• Queensland won the Achievement Award in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021.