Public support for policies to phase out the retail sale of cigarettes in Australia: results from a nationally representative survey.

Background: There is growing international interest in a goal once considered unthinkable: phasing out the retail sales of smoked tobacco products. In this study, we examined public support for phasing out sales and specific measures for moving towards a phase-out among a nationally representative sample of Australian adults.

Methods: In December 2019, we used a probability-based online panel, Life in Australia™, to survey n=1939 Australian adults (n=1874 included in analyses due to missing data).

Results: Almost two-thirds of respondents thought it would be 'a good thing' if there came a time when it was no longer legal to sell cigarettes in shops in Australia and only 16.7% thought it would be 'a bad thing'. After the concept of a phase-out was defined as removing a product from the Australian market over a set period, such as 5 years, but still allowing purchases online from overseas companies, 50.7% indicated support for such a phase-out and 61.8% thought it should happen within 10 years. Support was greater for specific measures such as licensing tobacco retailers (75.3%) and restricting sales to places children cannot enter (76.3%). Support tended to be consistent across demographic subgroups but was stronger among never and former smokers than among current smokers.

Conclusions: There has been little public discussion in Australia about the goal of 1 day phasing out the retail sale of cigarettes. It is notable that such policies are reasonably well supported by the Australian public, with only minority opposition.