Anti-advertising laws and high taxes on cigarettes crushed smoking rates. Cigarettes use to be everywhere. People would be smoking on every street corner; cigarette butts on every footpath; a pervasive stench of smoke in basically every public building.

The anti-smoking campaign worked. Unfortunately, law-makers were slow to react to the rise of vapes, and now smoking got its foot back in the door with their highly addictive product.

I don’t know what the right play now is, but I’d be highly reluctant to roll back a system that worked. Many of the people calling for reduction in cigarette tax have essentially zero credibility. Obviously there are businesses that want to sell more cigarettes and are willing to lobby to that effect, and people like Pauline Hanson love to take those sweet lobbying perks. So I’d be inclined to take the view of neutral experts, and the evidence of my lived history.