Saving lives is easy, count to 21

Tobacco21 puts a greater age gap between adults who can buy and impressionable students, says Bruce Mansfield

HAVING your first cigarette before the age of 18 makes you twice as likely to become a lifelong smoker compared to someone who starts smoking later in life.

According to a new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Tasmania had the highest proportion of total disease burden attributable to tobacco use in 2015.

If a person doesn’t start smoking until the age of 21, they are far less likely to become a lifetime smoker.

Our politicians will this week consider the proposed Tobacco21 legislation, which seeks to raise the legal age for persons to whom retailers can sell tobacco products to 21 years.

They have a clear choice to make.

They can progress legislation that will help save the lives of future generations of young Tasmanians.

Or they can do nothing and allow more young people to become lifelong customers for the tobacco giants and those who sell their lethal products.

The human brain isn’t fully developed until we reach the age of 25.

And if the brain is exposed to nicotine early in life, permanent damage is done to its dopamine receptors, making it very hard to ever quit smoking.

Tasmanian Small Business Council chief executive Robert Mallett’s story in the Mercury (“Smoking in decline without having to impose draconian ban”, Talking Point, October 19) suggested that youth smoking isn’t an issue in Tasmania.

We disagree. Smoking rates in Tasmania sit at 17.6 per cent, way above the Tasmanian Government’s target of 10 per cent to be achieved by 2020 and reducing to 5 per cent by 2025.

Cancer Council Victoria data shows that 8 per cent of 12-17-year-old school students are among the current cohort of smokers in Tasmania. This data is limited by virtue of the survey being exclusive to school students.

Australian Bureau of Statistics research indicates this jumps to an incredible 22.6 per cent of Tasmanians aged 18-24 who are also current smokers.

This is significantly higher than the national average of 16.3 per cent for the same age group and the highest rate across Australia.

In Bridgewater, people are 3.5 times more likely to die from preventable smokingrelated illnesses than in the average Australian suburb.

Mr Mallett says that if the majority of young people sourced cigarettes from friends, raising the age wouldn’t make a difference on smoking rates.

Three in five, 60 per cent, of people under the age of 17 years who obtained cigarettes, got them from friends (assumingly 18 or 19-year-old school peers).

Tobacco21 prevents this occurring by putting a greater age gap between adults who can purchase and impressionable high school students who are more vulnerable to the effects of nicotine than any other age group.

By countering this 60 per cent, there will automatically be a reduction in youth smoking initiation, and this is what has occurred in other case studies.

The Tasmanian Small Business Council argues that Tobacco21 wouldn’t make

“any tangible difference to smoking rates” — but simultaneously argues the legislation will put tobacco retailers out of business. The irony i of this contradictory argument is clear – tobacco retailers appear to agree that the Tobacco21 legislation would w reduce sales of tobacco.

For tobacco retailers in Tasmania, Tobacco 21 may represent a threat to the income they derive from tobacco t sales not only to young people but to those young people who become addicted and therefore lifelong customers.

Tobacco21 will restrict the ability of tobacco retailers to sell products to young people that have been proven as addictive a and ultimately deadly, and this threatens big tobacco’s longevity as its market diminishes over time.

If enacted, the Tobacco21 legislation will operate alongside existing legislation to further restrict big tobacco from accessing our youth, disabling its future market.

Tasmania needs responsible legislation and politicians who represent the broader public interests and a better life for this and future generations.

We are urging our representatives to consider the undeniable positive impacts of the Tobacco21 bill, and not to be influenced by the interests of the multibillion-dollar tobacco industry. Bruce Mansfield is a senior adviser to the Minderoo Foundation, a philanthropic organisation established by Andrew and Nicola Forrest. They support Tasmania raising the minimum sales age of tobacco as an integral part of their Eliminate Cancer initiative.