Talking Point: Don’t ignore the other pandemic

Tobacco lobbyists are still arguing for business, write Nick Towle and Kathryn Barnsley

DEADLY: Smoking kills 560 Tasmanians a year. Smokers are also at far greater risk of dying from COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken over our lives and our attention. Thirteen Tasmanian lives have sadly been lost.

However, there is another older pandemic, also recognised by the World Health Organisation — and that is tobacco smoking.

The tobacco smoking pandemic claims six million lives worldwide each year, many more than any recent pandemic. Smoking kills 560 Tasmanians a year, but we hear no politicians mourning their loss, consoling their families, and few making strenuous efforts to prevent future deaths. There are no news conferences announcing the deaths of 10 tobacco smokers every week, yet their families are just as desolate as those lost to COVID-19.

Those who profit from selling these lethal products are strident in their support for big tobacco and continuing sales. During the COVID-19 pandemic we hear their repetitive yet unfounded claims that tobacco sales are critical for business, and urging our elected representative to turn a blind eye to unnecessary harm to our community.

Their words echo those of tobacco and vaping industry lobbyists, urging the creation of new markets to sell a new generation of death dealing addictive products.

At a time of such crisis it is time to draw breath and respond to the considered advice of expert health Professors Mike Daube and Rob Moodie who, last week in the Medical Journal of Australia, recommended that commercial sale of tobacco products be phased out by 2030. Accompanying this would be even greater support to help existing smokers quit.

They also recognised the need to assist small businesses in transitioning away from tobacco sales.

Other health experts are seeking much stronger responses to this preventable tobacco pandemic, publishing calls for an immediate and total ban on tobacco sales.

South Africa banned the sale of tobacco during the COVID-19 crisis, while some other countries curiously made tobacconists “essential services”.

Since 2016, Tasmanian health professionals and organisations have advocated for much more modest proposals, with either a slow incremental phase-out of the commercial sale of tobacco to anyone born after a particular year — say 2003 — or to simply raise the age of tobacco product sales to 21 years.

However, these proposals lack the urgency and ambition demonstrated in our public health response to COVID-19, or the proposed 2030 timeline recommended by national health experts to phase out commercial sale of tobacco industry products.

More than 70,500 Tasmanians smoke and are at far greater risk of dying from COVID-19 than non-smokers.

Numerous studies bear this out. In one Tasmanian suburb, 40 per cent of people are smokers. Babies are harmed by maternal smoking and Tasmania has the highest rates.

SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19, which will not be the last zoonotic respiratory pandemic.

It is predicted we will have to adjust to more in future but, if we eliminate smoking, we will lose many fewer lives from such lethal viruses.

In the short-term, we will continue to support the raising of the tobacco sales age to 21, and urge that our elected representatives listen to the advice of health experts in tackling the unnecessary harm caused by the tobacco pandemic.

As we set our sights on an end date to the current COVID-19 restrictions, it is also time to look at 2030 as an end date for phasing out commercial sales of tobacco industry products.

Dr Nick Towle is Clinical Medical Education Advisor at the University of Tasmania’s Rural Clinical School in Burnie. Dr Kathryn Barnsley is adjunct researcher in the School of Medicine, UTAS, Hobart. They are convenors of SmokeFree Tasmania.