A/Professor Coral Gartner - Regulatory options for ending the tobacco cigarette epidemic

Speaker

A/Professor Coral Gartner (UQ School of Public Health)

Abstract

Smoking tobacco remains the leading preventable cause of premature morbidity and mortality globally, and in Australia. Tobacco cigarettes are the most harmful way to use nicotine, killing half to two thirds of long-term users. The fact that such a deadly consumer product has been allowed to stay on the market is a historical anomaly. Yet tobacco cigarettes are still allowed to be sold in general retail outlets, are exempt from drugs and poisons regulations and are subject to minimal product standards, while lower risk nicotine products are either banned from sale or must comply with strict medicinal regulations. Is it sensible for this situation to continue, or should the Australian Government develop a strategy to bring about an end to general retailing of cigarettes? This seminar will discuss several regulatory options that have been proposed for ending the cigarette epidemic.

Speaker Bio

Associate Professor Coral Gartner has an undergraduate degree in Environmental Health and a PhD in Environmental Epidemiology. She has held two NHMRC research fellowships and is a chief investigator on several NHMRC and ARC grants. She leads the Nicotine and Tobacco Regulatory Science Research Group in UQ’s School of Public Health in the Faculty of Medicine, were she is also the Program Convenor for the Master of Environmental Health Sciences. Her research has focussed on tobacco control policy and interventions to reduce tobacco-related harms since 2006.