Australia’s vape prohibition is fueling a booming illicit market—while New Zealand’s regulated approach sees smoking rates fall faster. In this GFN 2025 conversation, Fiona Patten speaks with Rohan Pike and Asa Saligupta about what’s broken in tobacco control, what actually works in harm reduction.
Chapters:
0:00 - Australia’s harm reduction backslide 3:30 - Enforcement limits and border math 7:10 - New Zealand’s regulation model 10:30 - Tax, price signals, and youth access 14:20 - WHO FCTC, Articles 6 and 15 18:40 - Thailand’s regulatory opening 23:30 - Prohibition vs. pragmatic regulation 27:00 - How governments can pivot gracefully 29:10 - Outlook for Australia and ThailandTranscription:
00:11 - 01:39
[Fiona Patten]
I'm joined here at the moment with Rohan Pike and we will be also joined shortly by Asa from Thailand. This morning we thought we would, I like to describe Australia and I'm sure you do as well as the global village idiot. when it comes to tobacco harm reduction. Australia, once upon a time, probably before many of you were born, was a world leader in harm reduction and I benefited from that. We worked on needle exchanges, we worked on decriminalising sex work, We worked on providing safer sex education without stigma, without judgment. But when it comes to tobacco, we really have lost the plot and we have no idea. So I'm delighted to be joined by a fellow Australian here today, Rohan Pike, who is a former police officer. You know, sometimes we always think we're on the other side of the line with the police, but this time we are on the same side of the line. And I think we're both in furious agreement that our tobacco control policies in Australia are not working. Rohan, this is your first GFN. Good morning. How have you found it?
01:39 - 01:57
[Rohan Pike]
It's been excellent, yeah. As a first-timer, it's a bit of information overload. I'm looking forward to going back over my notes, perhaps re-watching some of the sessions if I can. But, no, it's been excellent giving me a broad overview of the harm reduction issue.
01:57 - 02:40
[Fiona Patten]
Yes. I think, you know, it's interesting for some of us. I think this is my, well, I was looking back at my photos and I saw a photo of me in Warsaw from 2019. So I've been coming since 2019. And every year, and I'm sure for the people watching online, every year we, you know, there's so much to learn and there's so much that we're learning. about nicotine, but also for us in Australia, how we can properly control tobacco and how we can properly implement tobacco harm reduction. So far, has there been any highlights for you, Rohan?
02:40 - 03:37
[Rohan Pike]
Well, again, as a first timer, it's all been quite exciting. So I really enjoyed the opening keynote from Mark yesterday morning. He summed up the issue terribly well and made me think, gee, there's a lot I need to get my head around. As you know, in Australia, we don't talk about harm reduction very much. So there's not a lot of information that is spoken of. So in order for the likes of us to talk about it, that the information that he shared is vitally important to get my head around. And Carolyn, I thought, was excellent in her response. She raised an issue that's dear to us, especially from Melbourne, being COVID. Yes. And compared our extreme response to COVID compared to the response to deaths caused by smoking, which is not nearly on the same level. And I thought that was quite interesting and useful.
03:37 - 04:16
[Fiona Patten]
Yes, I must say that really struck me. And I think it also struck me when I was considering the Melbourne supervised injecting room that I played a role in. And we introduced that room because 23 people had died of an overdose. in a small 400 square metre area in a suburb in Melbourne. And we have spent millions in establishing a supervised injecting room as a harm reduction technique for preventing death. Yet 50 people die every day in Australia because of tobacco.
04:16 - 04:31
[Rohan Pike]
Yes. Now I remember it took you probably quite a long time and a lot of frustration to get that eminently sensible idea off the ground and there seems to be a lack of common sense in Australia and it is quite embarrassing.
04:31 - 05:00
[Fiona Patten]
You know, as a former police officer, how did the police deal with this? I mean, I can imagine their complete frustration where, you know, what had been a largely legal market is now largely illicit. I think I was reading the other day 13 organised crimes taking $13 million a day now from the tobacco, illicit tobacco and vape market.
05:00 - 06:03
[Rohan Pike]
Yes, that's an official government figure, which sort of adds up to $5 billion a year, and that's probably a conservative figure. But as you know, we've got the federal government who set the policy. Traditionally, the federal agencies like the Australian Border Force, where I finished my career, have only really been concerned with the border and trying to stop products illicit products entering the country from there. But as we know, that's nigh impossible when there's a tsunami of product now coming in. And the state police forces who remit his protection of property and persons, they're only new to this. have been reluctant to get involved, blaming the federal policy and wanting to change that. But they haven't been able to avoid it when we've had firebombings and murders and so on. So they are struggling to get their head around the size of it and it's extremely difficult to reverse now.
06:04 - 06:24
[Fiona Patten]
And I think, you know, it's difficult when smoking is generally a legal activity still in Australia. For the policing of it when, you know, people are smoking in the streets but you don't know whether they're smoking an illicit product or a, you know, taxed legal product.
06:25 - 07:04
[Rohan Pike]
No, it could be anything, especially... Well, now we've got more than half of the tobacco market is illicit and over 95% of the vape market is illicit. So it's everywhere. And one of the most galling things is that it's easily available on shop fronts in every street, in every suburb and country towns, which is causing enormous damage to the retail industry, not to mention government revenues. Yes. And kids and so on have got access to cheap tobacco prices that we haven't seen since the early 1990s. That's right. And that's, yeah, the illicit price. Since we were children.
07:05 - 08:22
[Fiona Patten]
Yeah. We're going to seamlessly bring in Asa from Thailand while we continue talking. Do we... We'll keep on talking as he seamlessly brings in a chair coming in next to us. So this will all work very well. Please bear with us. As we see, and I think probably one of the other more galling and more disappointing things with Australia's policy is the fact that we are losing to New Zealand. Now, I'm sure if any of you don't know that Australia and New Zealand, you know, we are... We're family, but we are very competitive. We always try and beat them in netball, in all sporting. You know, when we play New Zealand, things get real. But now we're seeing a model of regulation by... by our cousins across the ditch. Do you think that that is a model that would work in Australia?
08:23 - 08:56
[Rohan Pike]
um yeah no well they're certainly uh leading the way we're leading us which isn't hard to be fair it's a low bar we're sitting but um uh new zealand are often more progressive than us in in various ways and um and on this where they've embraced the vape technology um sees that their smoking rates are dropping uh significantly faster than ours well ours are you know, possibly not dropping at all, if not rising. But yeah, no, certainly we need to look at New Zealand and take on board what they're doing.
08:57 - 09:35
[Fiona Patten]
We had a number the other day of, in the legal vapes that are sold in pharmacies, less than, I think it was less than 40,000 have been distributed in two years, yet Border Force reported seizing nine million vapes the other day. Now, is it a rule of thumb that the border force seizes around 10, somewhere between five to 10% of illicit products that come into the country?
09:35 - 10:43
[Rohan Pike]
Yeah, I think that's about right. Their commissioner came to a parliamentary hearing last year and said that they seized 25%. I would suggest that that's on a good day. But even so, that 25% actually equated to $3.5 billion worth of tobacco that they'd see so even on their own figures yeah three times that is ten and a half billion got through the border so um whichever way you look at it there's a huge amount um bombarding the border and it's just overwhelmed yeah those border authorities so um To be fair to them, to my old colleagues, they're not set up to really stop all illicit products. The primary job of customs is to facilitate the free movement of goods and people across the border, not to actually stop things. So they're not really designed to stop everything. And when a problem like this is exacerbated by government policy, then they just fail on that front.
10:43 - 11:28
[Fiona Patten]
Asa, welcome and thank you so much for joining us this morning. Asa is from Thailand and has been a tobacco harm reduction advocate, also a beneficiary of tobacco harm reduction. Like me, vaping assisted you to give up smoking and as it did for myself. As we're talking about, you know, the disaster and the bin fire that is Australian regulation, I'm not sure that Thailand is much better than Australia. Or has there been progress in Thailand around tobacco harm reduction?
11:28 - 12:46
[Asa Saligupta]
We are hoping it's going to be because like most people know that it's the rule of regulation in Thailand is kind of weird because it's illegal to import and distribute electronic cigarettes. Yes. Let's talk about vaping for just a moment. Yes. And that's the only thing that is illegal. So it's kind of weird, because, like, you cannot import. You can't distribute. But then again, possession is not, per se, illegal. Right. But let's go back to, like, a regular tobacco, like, a regular cigarette. We were talking about... You guys were talking about, like, the illicit market, right? Yeah. One other thing I would like to mention is the taxation. We have to be really careful about the taxation. What is happening in Thailand right now, the black market of the regular cigarette. Now, we're not talking about the... Yeah. ...the tobacco harm reduction product yet, but the regular combustible cigarette. The black market has gone up way, way high. Like right now, we were looking at more than 50 or 60% of black market being spread around in the country. Wow. Ever since, you know, the two-tier tax.
12:46 - 12:51
[Fiona Patten]
Yes. Yeah. Rohan, that's probably fairly similar to Australia.
12:51 - 14:48
[Rohan Pike]
Yeah. Very similar. The tax is the key driver of the combustible cigarette problem. Australia prides itself on being the highest taxing country in the world. But we're also quickly becoming the highest illicit rate now in tobacco as well. Slightly different driver for the vape market where there's virtually no competitor for the illicit market. So price isn't so much of a concern to them. It's more about access and availability where it's extremely inconvenient to get a legal vape and people can just go simply to the local store and get an illegal one so that's a slightly different driver in that market but certainly the tax is a key concern for and there's been some call-outs as you would know the Premier of New South Wales recently threw some blame back at the federal government about the tax and suggested that we should adjust that. It may be too late for that now, but anyway, it was interesting that someone so senior would say such a thing. Just on the tax, and I just refer back to your lecture yesterday with the FCTC, and just... With Article 5, where it talks about... Yeah, the 553. Yeah. No, no, no, just... Oh, sorry, Article... Is it 6? With the taxation. Where it encourages countries to increase taxation. It says increase taxation appropriately. Yeah. Do you think that they've forgotten the word appropriate? Probably. And just sort of said indiscriminately raise taxes. But I'm also, as an ex-enforcement person, interested in Article 15, which for some reason the WHA threw in, talking about you need to look at illicit. Perhaps they knew, but perhaps some enforcement person encouraged them to put that in. But that seems to be ignored in...
14:48 - 14:58
[Asa Saligupta]
Yeah, like Derek said in our session yesterday, you know, like the written... the written word, the actual written word was good.
14:58 - 14:59
[Fiona Patten]
Yes, that's right.
14:59 - 16:03
[Asa Saligupta]
The intention was good. But the enforcer, you know, the secretariat and the person who uses it, like, you know, they use it and then they kind of like want to bring it to their own, whatever agenda they are having, you know. So they kind of like twist and turn and sometimes they just... omit some of the words, you know, like, for example, for tobacco harm reduction, especially on electronic cigarette, I think it was like Cop Air that came out, one of the summarization came out, like they say, like, for those countries that is able, please regulate. For those country that cannot, then you can do a total ban, but beware of like, you know, beware of the black market, the illicit market, and everything. And then for the countries that want the total ban, they go back to their countries and they go like, WHO, FCTC told us, ordered us to do a total ban. I'm going like, are we reading the same thing?
16:04 - 17:10
[Fiona Patten]
We are reading the same thing. And I think one of the other parts of the interpretation of the treaty is the fact that consumers are now considered industry. So anyone who has managed to, you know, help with their own health as we have through tobacco harm reduction is excluded from the conversation. Yeah. When it's all about them. And as someone who was around during HIV and AIDS and when harm reduction really came into the fore and the World Health Organisation actually accepted harm reduction around that time, it was nothing about us without us. Yet their interpretation of the treaty is that consumers are now excluded from any conversation in tobacco harm reduction, which is almost unique to that particular treaty. There's no other area where consumers are excluded. Are consumers part of the conversation in Thailand?
17:10 - 18:36
[Asa Saligupta]
Uh, it started to be that way, luckily. Me, myself, I represent consumers, and I had been included just partially, but not within the health fanatic community. Because about seven or eight years ago, there was this so-called specialist, and he was on TV and showing everything, and then it just confiscated. And then he couldn't even turn on the electronic cigarette, you know, the mod. So, like, he doesn't even know the five-click system and things like that. And, you know, like, the things that in Australia and in New Zealand, I think, like, you must have the five-click on and off. He doesn't even know that, and he call himself specialist. We were just sitting there watching TV, and we were laughing, and we go like... And finally they invited me in some of the, it started by they invited me in some of the government panel and because I started doing on my own, just telling people how to properly use Tobacco harm reduction, whether it be vaping or snus, which was not quite popular back then, like about 10 years ago, 12 years ago. And then I started doing like a small YouTube channel and my own Facebook and things like that.
18:36 - 18:55
[Fiona Patten]
I'm sorry to put it back to Australia, but does... Australia being a fairly developed country in the Asia-Pacific area, does what we do affect what happens in Thailand? Does your government look at Australia? Yeah.
18:55 - 19:38
[Asa Saligupta]
Yeah, somewhat, yeah. They also look, they don't look at the countries that adopted tobacco harm reduction. And they'll go like, see, yeah. And what's funny was that, look, Australia's doing a completely total ban on electric cigarette, and I just, like, that was a few years back, and you guys was trying, you know, deciding, like, to ban or not to ban. Yeah. And the Thai government already came out and said, like, Australia is going to ban it, everything. And I was just like, I just went to a vape shop like last week, you know, like, hey, I've got a picture, you know, the proof, and then just started doing that. So, yeah, in the short term, yes.
19:38 - 19:52
[Fiona Patten]
Yeah. Well, I think since the ban, we've probably tripled, well, not tripled, there is 10 times more vape stores than there was in 2016 when we set the ban up.
19:52 - 19:57
[Rohan Pike]
Yes. Now, if the government's not going to supply the market that's there, then the criminals will.
19:57 - 19:57
[Fiona Patten]
Yeah.
19:57 - 20:32
[Rohan Pike]
So as was pointed out yesterday, it's inevitable that these products will eventually get there. And when the government works out that the best way of doing that is to regulate it and provide those products, safe products, to the population, then we'll all be better off. But Australia likes to promote ourselves as being... world leading um and uh yeah we're leading in the excise rates and we're leading in violence relating to tobacco but we're not leading in much else so um uh yeah i'm hoping to go to various countries and tell them not to follow our example
20:32 - 21:19
[Fiona Patten]
That's right. I mean, I think that's really the only offering that Australia has at the moment in tobacco harm reduction is providing an example to the rest of the world in what not to do. We've been... It's been disastrous. While we were ahead in... in declines in our smoking rates. And we were, you know, proudly and possibly boastfully ahead of other countries. We're now plateauing and falling behind. Rohan, you were in the United Kingdom in London the other day speaking to the Lords. Was that your message, don't do what Australia does?
21:19 - 22:42
[Rohan Pike]
Pretty much, yes. So 10 years ago when I worked for the Federal Police and the Border Force, the UK were well ahead of the world. They had HMRC, their border control was an example that we were trying to replicate in Australia. They had low illicit rates and the NHS had embraced vapes and were encouraging people onto vapes, talking about 95% safer, et cetera. And that seems to have, they've gone a bit squeamish, I think, on that message. So the population now, half of them think that vapes are as bad as cigarettes, whereas that was 8% apparently 10 years ago. So that's a bit of a shame. And now they're thinking of bringing in generational bans, which are just crazy ideas that are unenforceable. So from the enforcement side, I said it's easy to say ban something, very hard to enforce some of these things. And as was pointed out yesterday, kids don't smoke anymore. So one of the main drivers for that policy, you know, was to take tobacco away from kids and they've already moved away. That's right. So the problem has solved itself really. So I thought it was a bit futile to go forward with that and the Lords seem to agree that I spoke to.
22:42 - 22:53
[Fiona Patten]
Excellent. So do you think Thailand is moving to a more regulated market? And are smoking rates declining in Thailand?
22:54 - 24:20
[Asa Saligupta]
Yes and no, really. We are looking at the better tobacco harm reduction because right now We've been trying to educate people about harm reduction, and we've been doing lots of harm reduction. Actually, it should be in constitution, wearing helmet, seatbelt, and everything, so why not tobacco harm reduction? Just doing the same thing to protect the people, especially youth. And we are talking the same language. but probably in different dialects. And so we try to get them, especially the government. And I was lucky enough to be invited to be to work with the government. And even so now I'm with the committee on amending laws and regulations about electronic cigarettes, especially on electronic cigarettes. So hopefully we will bring up and we will amend the law and just remove the prohibition of importation and distribution of electronic cigarette. And there should be some kind of laws, like you said, and if you all remember back in the Al Capone time, the ban on liquor. I mean, that's a great example that everybody all over the world knows. It's like this ban is not going to work.
24:20 - 24:21
[Rohan Pike]
A hundred years ago.
24:21 - 24:32
[Asa Saligupta]
Especially like in Thailand or in many countries where web is already prevalent. You know, you can see it like if you go to Thailand, it's everywhere. Free marketing. It's just like this. It's already dead.
24:33 - 25:25
[Fiona Patten]
It's an interesting thing to talk about prohibition and certainly to talk about alcohol prohibition, because in Australia, the governments and the health ministers will say, no, we didn't prohibit it. We didn't. You know, you can still buy... You can still purchase the product, you can still access the product through a doctor or through a chemist. And I was reminded that you could access alcohol through a doctor during the prohibition years, that if you had a prescription. And famously, Winston Churchill had a prescription when he travelled to America that enabled him to buy, to receive from his doctor a bottle of whiskey every day. So, but we still call that prohibition. And I think in Australia, I think we have to acknowledge that we have, it's prohibition.
25:25 - 26:14
[Rohan Pike]
Yeah, no, it's just a weaselly excuse that the government are using. They've put so many hurdles in the way of people accessing these products that it is a virtual prohibition. And there's no two ways around that. But... Which leads me to this morning's keynote of Jacob. When I was trying to understand why Australia has these crazy policies and being frustrated I, you know, scoured the globe to try and get an understanding because there's little written about it in Australia and I came across Jacob's Greer's books. Yes. And he outlines the background, the context of some of these decisions and the ideology behind them extremely well. So I'm looking forward to his session this morning.
26:15 - 27:31
[Fiona Patten]
Yes. In a few minutes, Jacob Greer will be providing the keynote at the session. So in Australia, I mean, on the 1st of July, we are actually putting in further restrictions on even the products that are, you know, narrowly available in our pharmacies and via a prescription model. So, in fact, I think most of the products that are even currently legal now, as of the 1st of July, will be illegal. Not that it particularly matters because no one's purchasing them anyway. But... In my mind, and as a lobbyist of many years and as a previous parliamentarian, what is the elegant way for governments to move from this policy? Do you have any ideas about how... how a health minister in Australia can pivot. And I see, I mean, Thailand is doing this, can pivot from its current policy that it seems to be just digging deeper into to a regulation or a more sensible approach that, you know, is maybe not world leading, but it follows best practice.
27:31 - 28:55
[Rohan Pike]
Yes. Well, you would like to think that we're at ground zero and that they are turning their mind to coming out the other side, but they're really not. They're doubling down. So it's hard to see them turning that around. But as we said before, there's been some blowback from the states. The states are left to deal with the violence and the criminality. that the government policies have caused. And they don't want to be blamed for that because they've got elections themselves coming up and the voters will think that law and order is out of control in the states. So that has raised its head already and I think that's going to become stronger. So there will be some advocacy from the states back to the federal. And, of course, the Treasurer is losing billions of dollars in revenue. So the revenue in Australia has gone from $16.5 billion five years ago to $7.5 just in five years. So there's a huge hole in our budget. And the Treasurer has turned his mind to it. But at some stage, if that even reduces further, which it's likely to... then he'll be asking questions as to how this has happened and perhaps how we can arrest that slide. Yes. So there's hope on the horizon, but it'd be good if we had a new health minister as well.
28:56 - 29:12
[Fiona Patten]
I... I concur. In our final moments before we send the audience back into the ballroom, Asa, are you optimistic in Thailand for tobacco harm reduction?
29:12 - 29:26
[Asa Saligupta]
Yeah, the short answer is yes. We're looking forward to it, because like I said, we try to educate people and try to bring consumers into action as much as possible.
29:27 - 29:57
[Fiona Patten]
Yes, and in Australia we have well over a million vapours and it's probably actually larger than that. Rohan, you talked about how there's going to be pressure from state governments, there's going to be pressure from the Treasury. Are you optimistic that we can turn this around, that we can close this enormous illicit market in Australia in tobacco and in vaping?
29:58 - 30:44
[Rohan Pike]
I think it's going to be very difficult. But as a normal human, I'd like to be optimistic. I'd like to think that there's going to be an outbreak of common sense any time soon because any educated, intelligent senior member of government must be thinking that there's got to be a better way and perhaps looking for what that would be. And I talk about enforcement from my background, but I'm losing faith that enforcement is going to have any effect or is able to turn this around. And that's why I'm here at this conference to learn more about harm reduction and throw harm reduction out in the public arena at home and trying to help educate people about that.
30:44 - 31:53
[Fiona Patten]
And I think if I can say something good about Australia, which is hard to at a conference like this, that we were one of the first countries that really adopted a harm minimisation structure within our drug policies. We had the three pillars of harm minimisation, which is harm reduction, supply reduction, demand reduction. Unfortunately, only one pillar, which is supply reduction, seems to get the most attention from governments. And I'm hopeful that that tripod of harmonisation can somehow become balanced. And, you know, it was that interesting point yesterday where we talk about the 95% safer, but also one of the speakers yesterday was talking about tobacco pouches almost being the next vaccination. When, you know, in Australia, 50 people die a day, I suspect it's even higher rates in Thailand. And we could be saving those lives through tobacco harm reduction.
31:54 - 31:54
[Asa Saligupta]
Yeah, yeah.
31:55 - 32:01
[Fiona Patten]
Are pouches coming out in Thailand?
32:01 - 32:13
[Asa Saligupta]
Yeah, in some way or form, but not so popular and not many people know about pouches. Actually there are factories, I think there's also factories in Thailand producing pouches.
32:16 - 32:53
[Fiona Patten]
I think I'm hearing someone telling me I've got to stop. Yes, OK, thank you. Yes, so we're wrapping up now. I think we're all looking forward to hearing from Jacob Greer, who will be talking about tobacco harm reduction and the media. And that certainly has been something that has been really headlining this conference, the fear about the misinformation around tobacco harm reduction. So thank you all for joining us this morning and over to the ballroom where... Marina Murphy will be hosting, Jacob Greer and Harry Shapiro will be the respondent.