World No Tobacco Day demonstrates cost of living pressures

A shopping trolley filled with $253 worth of goods side-by-side shows one cart with five cigarettes packets and the other full of groceries, including pantry basics, meat and fresh produce.

The global theme of this year's day is 'we need food, not tobacco' aiming to encourage tobacco farmers to consider an alternative crop.

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Tasmania's focus instead shifts on the cost of living, which Quit Tasmania director Abby Smith said was more relatable to the region.

She said if someone smoked 20 cigarettes a day, quitting could save over $1000 a month, or $13,000 a year.

With the federal government announcing a tobacco tax excise recently, the cost is set to increase by five per cent for three years in addition to normal indexation.

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"What really blows my mind is hearing from our Quitline councilors who are speaking with people who have multiple smokers in the household," Ms Smith said.

"This World No Tobacco Day (May 31), we urge you to pencil in a quit date, and 'have-a-go', even if you try staying smoke-free for 24 hours."

Quitline team leader Susan Hearn hears first hand from smokers trying to break their additions.

She said financial reasons had started to overtake health reason.

"We get a lot of people ringing who are already in a bit of a financial hole, and subsequently if they quit or not that can make a huge difference to their living conditions," Ms Hearn said.

"But it's an easy thing to want to do and it's a hard thing to do."

She said quitting could be wrapped up in stress, emotion, grief or loneliness.

Ms Hearn said talking about quitting was one of the best ways to do so.

"It's a powerful addition that has so many connotations for people and implications and being able to talk about it with somebody and unpack all the connections," she said.

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Quitline councillor Wendy Atkinson reiterated financial reasons was a major consideration when people decide to quit cigarettes.

"We often talk about how many cigarettes they're smoking in a day, and then they'll add it up," Ms Atkinson said.

"And they think that's a huge amount, I could be buying more groceries for the family."

The federal government also recently cracked down on vaping and e-cigarettes with laws to be introduced to ban the items.

Ms Smith said smoking nicotine additions were very similar to vaping.

She said the similarities between the two meant councillors already had the skill set to help people either quit vaping, if they're dual using and might want to quit both, or assist some using e-cigarettes in their smoking cessation attempt.

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"Given the evidence ... we don't promote the use of e-cigarettes in smoking cessation attempts," Ms Smith said.

"However we have a client-centred approach if someone comes to us already using it as a way to quit smoking."

She said new generations of e-cigarettes made it difficult to tangibly see how much nicotine someone is using.

"Some new generation e-cigarettes have 1000s of puffs, and when testing the nicotine equivalent it is easily up to 20 packets of cigarettes," she said.

People can call Quitline on 1300 78 48, or request a call on quittas.org.au

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