Choking demand for tobacco and slashing smoking rates starts with reducing how many retailers can sell cigarettes and even shutting shops.

That’s the verdict from leading public health experts who say it’s time for governments to question whether a product capable of killing users should be available so easily.

The tobacco industry does everything it can to normalise their products including making them freely available and marketing them as everyday consumables, Australian National University academic Raglan Maddox said.

“It’s incredibly hard to quit when you know that you can buy this highly addictive product on pretty much every street corner,” the associate professor told AAP.

“We have community members asking why is it easier to buy tobacco product than is to buy fresh fruit and bread or to get my scripts filled after going to the GP?”

Assoc Prof Maddox likened reducing tobacco sales to other public health measures like phasing out asbestos, solariums, lead paint and engineered stone.

Tobacco products can be purchased in supermarkets, tobacconists, petrol stations and convenience shops around the nation.

Almost one in ten Australians smoke and some 66 Australians die from smoking every day.

Assoc Prof Maddox is among four experts from Cancer Council NSW, leading universities and St Vincent’s Health who authored the opinion piece in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, published on Wednesday.

University of Sydney professor Becky Freeman said Australia’s tobacco market was oversupplied, under-regulated and out of step with community expectations.

“Local communities, particularly parents, are sick of seeing tobacconists pop up everywhere,” she said.

“It’s time to shut the shops and cut the number of stores allowed to profit from this harmful product.”

Illicit tobacco is at the heart of a war between criminal syndicates in Victoria, with more than 100 firebombings linked to the conflict.

The federal health minister previously described vapes shops as a lucrative source of revenue for organised crime, using sales to fund drug and sex trafficking.

Public Health Association of Australia chief executive Terry Slevin called on all levels of government to listen to public health experts and not let the tobacco industry or criminals influence law.

“Let’s aim for a future where Australians are free from tobacco- and nicotine- addiction,” he said.

Source: AAP