Cheap tobacco's additives a health risk
By Julie Robotham, Medical Writer
December 9 2002
Beware "chop-chop" ... Renee Bittoun. Photo: Jon Reid
Illegal sales of loose tobacco adulterated with everything from water to
chlorine are being blamed for a surge in serious respiratory illness in
smokers.
A survey of people attending smokers' clinics run by Central Sydney Area
Health Service found almost half were using "chop-chop" - illegal tobacco
either diverted from legitimate tobacco growers or grown covertly.
Overwhelmingly they were doing so because it was cheaper than commercial
tobacco products, but many also believed it had no additives and was
healthier, said Renee Bittoun, the clinic's director.
"There's a rampant rise in the use of it. The price of cigarettes is
pushing people with lower incomes into this and I'm seriously concerned
about the medical consequences," said Ms Bittoun, who conducted the survey
after she noticed people attending her clinics were on average very much
sicker than typical patients she had seen in previous years.
Chop-chop - sold under the counter through tobacconists, pubs and markets
in poorer suburbs and via the internet - was frequently cut with straw or
dampened to increase the weight, Ms Bittoun said. Mould spores could then
enter the lungs, causing alveolitis or pneumonia, and some was sprayed with
chloride bleach, meaning smokers were inhaling chlorine gas.
There had almost certainly been deaths from sudden attacks of lung disease,
said Ms Bittoun, whose survey results are published today in the Medical
Journal of Australia.
The Tax Office, which polices chop-chop at grower and retail levels, says
the retail price per kilogram is about $140 - enough to make 2000
cigarettes, according to the Quit campaign. On that basis, smoking
chop-chop is around 75 per cent cheaper than buying ready-made cigarettes.
Quit also claims chop-chop exceeds sales of rolling tobacco - which
represents up to 8 per cent of legitimate tobacco sales.
A Tax Office spokesman said 170 tonnes of chop-chop had been seized in two
years - the equivalent of $45 million in excise - and the penalties for
trading in it had increased.
Undercover Tax Office agents had been able to buy chop-chop at one in five
of 700 retailers visited, he said. Retailers get an immediate "slap on the
wrist" fine of $2200 and repeat offences may be taken to court.
The Tax Office's main emphasis was on 320 licensed tobacco growers, mainly
in north-eastern Victoria and in far north Queensland, "to ensure their
tobacco doesn't go into the illegal market".
The price of a bale of chop-chop had trebled since early 2001. "We could
put that down to our success," the spokesman said.
But a tobacco industry report estimated tobacco excise in 2001 was $450
million less than it would have been if chop-chop smokers had bought
legitimate products.
The report's author, Paul Baxter from PricewaterhouseCoopers, said
chop-chop use was unlikely to have receded since. The Government had used
excise increases to discourage people from smoking, but this was a "blunt
instrument" that had apparently led to increased demand for chop-chop, he said.
The chief executive of the Cancer Council of NSW, Andrew Penman, praised Ms
Bittoun's work as a "tremendous contribution" to public health research as
almost nothing had previously been known about illegal tobacco.
He said it was difficult to study the health effects of chop-chop
rigorously because its unregulated status meant there was variation between
batches.
"There is a perception out there that this is a healthier product because
it is 'natural', but you can assure people that those selling this stuff
have no more concern for their health than the tobacco industry," Dr Penman
said.
http://smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/08/1038950269935.html
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