I was sitting outside the court in Lismore, waiting for my client’s case to be called, and reminiscing about how many cigarettes I must have smoked in this spot in years gone by.
A group of young people walked past and I recognised one as the wayward son of a mate, and we got chatting, as you do. Coincidently he was smoking a tailor-made cigarette, juvenile smoke rings and all, and as he finished one he used the butt to light a fresh one.
Chain smoking. As I used to do. I asked him how he could possibly afford to smoke, given the price of cigarettes, and he explained to me that he bought his under the counter from a particular place he identified.
Gotta love a durry
He offered me a ‘durry’, which was sweet, and tempted as I was, I resisted. I so loved smoking. Just the smell of beer makes me long for my Kent – suave soft-pack of course.
My last fag was in 1989, when my best mate right through school killed himself with a 12-gauge leaving behind three darling children, his wife and a note for me that read ‘don’t you think it’s about time you gave up smoking’.
Wracked with grief and guilt I swore I would never smoke again, in his memory, and I never have. It was, weirdly, a parting gift from him to me, and I love him for it still.
Intrigued about the illegal tobacco, I donned my flanny, beanie and daggy jeans (disguised as Hans Lovejoy I thought) and went in to the place my mates son had identified and asked for some cheap smokes.
I didn’t say ‘please’ because it seemed a giveaway. The price of cigarettes above the counter was $40-50 for 20, but I got 140 for $28. Cash only. A bargain!
No graphic health warnings, the filters looked dodgy, and there was little quality control. The roll-your-own bags were even cheaper, but my rolling skills are legendarily pathetic. I got kicked out of the MardiGrass joint rolling competition in 1995 for bringing the institution into disrepute.
Public policy mess
What an absolute public policy mess. How have we got to this? About 70 per cent of the price of tobacco is tax, so that’s the reason above-the-counter ciggies are so expensive. And the government take has dropped by half over the last few years to $7.4 billion.
Academics and politicians fall into their usual camps with one side calling for lowering the tax, and the other rejecting that as industry toadying and pushing tougher enforcement with various shades in between. Worse still, the health-based cessation products now often cost more than continuing to smoke.
The government claims that less people are smoking and that is why the revenue has halved – a laughable suggestion.
That’s the problem with an illicit market – it becomes really hard to measure, and the black market is by colour definition unfathomable. Not only that, but typical of illicit trade, there are now tobacco wars, with 200 firebombings, rabid extortion and even murders in the fight for market share.
Throw vapes into the mix
Throw into the mix the effective banning of vapes except by prescription and you have this volatile perfect storm of community harm. The evidence is that vaping was a harm-reduction bonus, that the gateway to cigarettes was largely mythical and that the banning of them has fuelled a significantly more dangerous development – illicit chop-chop tobacco gangs and massive sales.
Where to from here? There are some great ideas floating around, including the banning of smoking areas in licensed premises and removal of ATMs in tobacco shops. Of course the government has to reduce the excise or the illegal market will naturally flourish. More money for education and smoking reduction campaigns and free access to medical stop-smoking products have been effective in the past.
Sweden, which has adopted a mass harm-reduction program (without banning vapes) signals the success of such an approach – they are world leaders in this field and now have the lowest smoking rates in Europe.
Ignorantly, those calling for the prosecution of landlords, longer prison terms, expanded police powers and more law enforcement really do forget their history. It is so disappointing to see so many academics lining up with big sticks and grim faces next to uniformed types calling for border force growth, expanded warrants, and undercover operations.
Proof that they are misguided?
The latest sewerage figures are out from the Australian Crime Intelligence Commission showing that meth, cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy use are at their highest levels ever. A 34 per cent increase in just one year.
All that pain and resources and heavy prison sentences – for what? Even the director of that hippy mob is saying that ‘safe supply initiatives’ and ‘supervised consumption services’ are needed, rather than the ‘fantasy that arresting more people or seizing more drugs will solve the problem’.
Give that man a megaphone and a durry.
But now I have a real dilemma. What to do with the 140 smokes? They are haunting me from the back of the cupboard. Whispering, after dinner, ever so seductively – ‘smoke me… just one’.
David Heilpern is a former NSW magistrate and is now Dean of Law at Southern Cross University.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
