Ed,

According to the recent ABS report, Indigenous smoking rates have not declined since 2012-13. Currently 43.4% of Indigenous adults smoke, compared to 45.8% in 2012-13. These statistics are an indictment on Australia’s public health policies.

The Indigenous smoking rate is three times the non-Indigenous rate and the gap has not decreased since 1995, in spite of the Closing the Gap program and hundreds of millions of dollars spent on ineffective strategies.

Indigenous people are disproportionally harmed by smoking which accounts for 23% of the Indigenous/non-Indigenous health gap. It is also a major cause of financial stress and poverty.

Like other Australian smokers, Indigenous people are perversely denied legal access to the most effective quitting aid, vaping nicotine. Only 1.4% of Australian Indigenous adults currently vape. In contrast, the vaping rate by Maori adults is 8.1% according to the recent New Zealand Annual Health Survey. Vaping is contributing to a much faster decline in smoking in that population.

Vaping is twice as effective as a quitting aid as nicotine replacement therapy such as nicotine patches and gum and is at least 95% safer than smoking, according to the UK Royal College of Physicians. It is no surprise that vaping is the most popular quitting aid in countries where it is available.

Words are no longer sufficient – it is time for action. If the Australian government is genuinely concerned about Indigenous smoking rates, it should allow legal access to nicotine for vaping. Continuing to deny access to these products is not only unscientific, but unethical.

Conjoint Associate Professor Colin Mendelsohn (UNSW)

Foundation Chairman and Board Member

Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (ATHRA)