Leading GP worries cheap illegal smoke will lead to poorer health in the regions

Illegal tobacco used to be something sold in small amounts between mates in the city but now it is a large-scale enterprise that is flooding Toowoomba and our doctors are worried.

Rural Doctors Association of Australia president Dr John Hall is calling on the State and Federal governments to get tough on illegal tobacco.

The illegal tobacco trade in Toowoomba is not only going unchecked, it could be costing residents their lives, one of Australia’s leading doctors has warned.

Black market tobacco sales are thriving in the Garden City with several shops distributing the product in plain sight at heavily discounted prices.

A legal bag of Winfield Blue loose leaf tobacco is sold at about $95 per 40 grams, while several stores are selling the same amount of illegal tobacco – also known as chop chop – for as cheap as $15.

Rural Doctors Association of Australia president John Hall slammed the sale of illegal tobacco and said the Federal Government’s hefty tobacco taxes were in place to reduce the number of active smokers and not just fill its coffers.

“It is a proven public health strategy that works,” Dr Hall said. “There is strong scientific evidence that shows increasing the cost of smoking leads to more people quitting which then saves the individual even more money, and in most cases their lives.”

Tobacco smoking remains a leading cause of preventable death worldwide, 70 years after researchers in the US and UK found a relationship between cigarettes and lung cancer.

“Homegrown tobacco won’t save anything – if it leads to increased rates of smoking it will cost people their lives,” Dr Hall said.

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“Smoking-related illness places a huge cost burden on our health system.

“This is money that could be spent on improving the system in so many areas of need, like improving our rural hospital and health services.”

Chop chop has been widely available in Australia’s southern states for years and was mostly sold informally.

But now the product is washing into Queensland and its trade has become increasingly sophisticated.

The Whyalla Gifts store goes so far as to package its chop-chop in counterfeit bags, complete with health warnings, with one person behind the counter noting it was packed daily.

Dr Hall is worried access to cheap tobacco would lead to users smoking more and holding on to the deadly habit for longer.

“In rural and remote Australia, people are 1.7 times more likely to smoke than those in major cities.

“If this backyard tobacco makes its way into rural communities it will only make this worse, placing increased demand on our already stretched rural health services.

“It’s an unregulated industry and this means there is no guarantee that the product is what they say it is or that it’s not contaminated with pesticides; also it can be contaminated with plant-based infections like fungus.

“The dangers of smoking home grown tobacco are the same, and probably worse than normal tobacco.”