{"id":344170,"date":"2025-12-12T23:31:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/344170\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T23:31:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T23:31:13","slug":"illicit-vaping-cigarette-raids-create-game-of-whack-a-mole-but-health-campaign-urges-patience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/344170\/","title":{"rendered":"Illicit vaping, cigarette raids create game of ‘whack-a-mole’ but health campaign urges patience"},"content":{"rendered":"

High tobacco taxes and demand for nicotine have pushed Australians into a flourishing black market that has outgrown traditional crackdowns, according to a criminologist.<\/p>\n

More than 11 million illegal cigarettes, 1.7 tonnes of loose tobacco, and 87,000 vapes have been taken off the streets of Queensland since last month when authorities were given new powers.<\/p>\n

While the state government described the raids as a national record, a criminology researcher with Deakin University, James Martin, said it would barely make a dent in the trade.<\/p>\n

“We know organised crime actors simply cost the loss of those things into their bottom line,”\u00a0Dr Martin said.<\/p>\n

“Demand for nicotine is strong, is stable [and] it’s certainly not going anywhere.”<\/p>\n

\u00a0The $15.7 million seizure saw 148 stores ordered to close for three months.<\/p>\n

While that has a bigger impact on the black market, Dr Martin said it also created a “whack-a-mole dynamic” for authorities.<\/p>\n

Flyers advertising the online delivery of illicit nicotine products<\/a> were posted around the Gold Coast within days of the raids.<\/p>\n

\"Ad<\/p>\n

Paper flyers signposted around Burleigh Heads advertising delivery of illicit vapes. (ABC Gold Coast: Julia Andre\u00a0)<\/p>\n

But a leading tobacco control group said that as the laws gained momentum and if other states followed suit, the black market could be controlled.<\/p>\n

A multi-billion-dollar market<\/p>\n

The federal government has committed $345 million to crack down on the supply of illicit tobacco and vapes since January 2024.<\/p>\n

Illegal tobacco is worth up to $6.9 billion, with an estimated 5,397 tonnes imported in 2024-25, according to the Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner <\/a>Report.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A makeshift sign advertising vapes on the Gold Coast. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

That’s worth $11.8 billion in lost tax revenue.<\/p>\n

Of all vapes in Australia, 95 per cent are illegal, making up a $1.6 billion market.<\/p>\n

Dr Martin said policy “own goals” have “gifted the entire market to some much shadier criminal operators”.<\/p>\n

Since July 2024, only reusable vapes from pharmacies can be legally sold, but many\u00a0chains have been resistant to stocking the products<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the rising excise on legal tobacco<\/a> has led to prices jumping 141 per cent since 2010, with a 20-pack of cigarettes now costing more than $40.<\/p>\n

\"Composite<\/p>\n

Composite image of vaping paraphernalia. (ABC Gold Coast: Dominic Cansdale)<\/p>\n

While the commissioner’s report warned that the “normalisation of consuming illicit tobacco and vapes directly supports serious and organised crime”, it recommends against reducing the tobacco excise.<\/p>\n

The director of UQ’s Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, Professor Coral Gartner, said reducing the excise would have little impact.<\/p>\n

“It’s likely these illegal products could be sold for cheaper,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The high price of tobacco is a strong deterrent and has been one of our key policies that has discouraged young people from taking up smoking.”<\/p>\n

The limit of penalties<\/p>\n

Only 20 per cent of\u00a0penalties issued to illicit nicotine retailers are actually paid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Martin said many figures in the black market lived overseas, making it difficult to recover fines.<\/p>\n

“Particularly if they\u2019re located in a country that doesn’t extradite people to Australia, such as Iraq, where some well-known kingpins of the illicit nicotine trade are located,” he said.<\/p>\n

But Queensland’s new laws<\/a> also include penalties for landlords who knowingly lease their properties to illicit nicotine retailers.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

More than 200 tobacconists have been firebombed across Australia. (Four Corners)<\/p>\n

The Illicit Tobacco and E-cigarette Commissioner Report has recommended the introduction of tougher, nationally consistent licensing requirements for tobacco retailers.<\/p>\n

Professor Gartner said the government must “massively tighten” controls on who was allowed to sell tobacco products and improve how products were tracked from the border to shops.<\/p>\n

“Only suppliers who can demonstrate they have adequate governance and security measures that protect them from involvement in illegal supply should be granted a licence to supply tobacco,” she said.<\/p>\n

What are the alternatives?<\/p>\n

In the United Kingdom, vapes are subsidised for adults who are trying to quit smoking.<\/p>\n

Reusable vapes can be sold to adults over the counter at retail stores, although the government is planning to restrict flavours and advertising.<\/p>\n

It has also proposed banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after 2008.<\/p>\n

But Professor Gartner said the UK has also experienced problems with a growing black market and that Queensland’s laws should be given more time.<\/p>\n

\"Moving<\/p>\n

Boxes of suspected illicit tobacco and vapes were seized from stores in Bundaberg in November, 2025. (ABC News: Johanna Marie)<\/p>\n

“As these new laws come into effect, not only in Queensland but in other jurisdictions too, I think we are going to see this start coming under control,” she said.<\/p>\n

But Dr Martin said that might be too late, with the black market already reaching a “critical mass”.<\/p>\n

“These are not new problems \u2014 the dynamics are well understood with illicit drugs more broadly,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve essentially got a failing war on drugs model that’s been increasingly applied to Australia’s third most popular recreational drug \u2014 nicotine.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High tobacco taxes and demand for nicotine have pushed Australians into a flourishing black market that has outgrown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":344171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[163648,43,190494,184385,18072,44,94,701,8623,41,39,42,40,190493,21334,8622,190492],"class_list":["post-344170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-chop-chop","tag-headlines","tag-illegal-smokes","tag-illegal-vapes","tag-illicit-cigarettes","tag-news","tag-qld","tag-queensland","tag-smoking","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-vaper-shop-raids","tag-vapes","tag-vaping","tag-where-to-buy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/344171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}