When it comes to reducing harms from smoking, Australia finds itself cast as the global village idiot – clinging to policies that perpetuate harm, empower criminals and squander opportunities to save lives.

While we once stood as pioneers in public health, and particularly harm reduction, we are now the cautionary tale.

At present, 66 Australians die every day from the effects of smoking – not from an addiction to nicotine, but from the toxic delivery mechanism of cigarettes. That is 24,000 Australian lives lost each year.

Australia has maintained tight restrictions on the use of vapes, even as other countries use them to help wean smokers off tobacco. Credit: Marija Ercegovac

Australia’s tobacco policy is a paradox of legal sanction and de facto prohibition. Legal cigarettes are taxed at rates so punitive that they have become virtually inaccessible to many, while vaping devices, which offer a far safer alternative, are rendered unobtainable through deliberately restrictive access avenues. The result? One of the most lucrative and violent black markets Australia has seen.

Apart from organised crime – whose fortunes have never been brighter – and a handful of well-intentioned but misguided health groups, nearly everyone else recognises federal Health Minister Mark Butler has made a huge mistake in his approach to controlling tobacco and vapes. His message is that we should continue down the path of prohibition in the vain hope we will eventually get a different result. But the fire bombings continue,........

© The Sydney Morning Herald