Release: ANU Report is a smokescreen
The findings of an interim report on vaping commissioned by Greg Hunt has today been slammed by vapers and vaping advocates alike for cherry picking data and shying away from real, credible statistics that are freely available. Legalise Vaping Australia’s Campaign Director, Brian Marlow called into question the validity of this study, highlighting what he believed to be serious omissions by the author.
“This report failed to cite statistics that didn’t favour the position of the Minister who commissioned this study, and it appears as though this interim report omitted freely available statistics that show how in the real world, vaping is helping hundreds of thousands of Australian vapers quit smoking once and for all”
“A literature review may sound nice, but what is actually needed is a review into the data. Numbers always tell the true story and the true story is vaping saves lives.”
“The researchers looked at over 2600 studies however they only selected 25 studies to generate a conclusion from. At best, this study is nothing more than a taxpayer funded exercise in confirmation bias. At worst, it is a sham.”
“The author cited the National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) but failed to use data that does not support the Health Minister’s views on vaping. Thankfully we don’t care about what the Health Minister may want, we only care about the truth. Here’s what the actual, real world data from the 2019 National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) says:
While nearly 4.2 percent of non-smokers of any age try vaping, the number who vape every few months is less than 1 per cent. The number of never smokers who vape daily is estimated to be between <0.1 per cent and 0.3 per cent. The number is so small that with the sample size it is statistically insignificant.
72.9 percent of ex smokers who tried vaping were smokers before they started vaping.
Of the people that identified as ‘never smokers’ and started vaping, 25.2 percent were actually social smokers who have since quit.
Additional notes:
- ANU Report: 7 pages
- Cost to taxpayers (so far): $700,000
- Cost per page: $100,000
- Time taken: 2 years… and counting
VS
- Our response: 1.5 pages
- Cost to taxpayers: $0
- Cost per page: $0
- Time taken for LVA to look up freely available NDSHS data: About 20 minutes
ENDS
Brian Marlow
Campaign Director
Brian Marlow is the Campaign Director of Legalise Vaping Australia, a grassroots advocacy campaign, funded by the community. LVA does not accept funding from the tobacco industry. Brian is also Executive Director of the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance.