Chop Chop Tobacco Racket Costs Australians $1bn a Year

 

The tobacco grows like a monster. It takes up large spaces and requires regular watering and fertiliser.

Healers believe the plant can be used to awaken or heal the spirit-body of a person. Precise recipes were omitted in order to protect the healer’s intellectual property and traditional knowledge. But the chop chop tobacco can be cured in various ways.

It’s cheaper

The unbranded illicit tobacco known as “chop chop” is sold under the counter at some grocers, markets and illegally from tobacconists. It is often adulterated with twigs, straw, hay, cabbage leaves and grass clippings, and may contain mould and fungi.

It can be cheaper than buying cigarettes, especially when bought in bulk. It can also be smoked more quickly because it’s easier to heat than regular tobacco.

A Sydney University professor who runs smoking cessation clinics says people don’t always admit to using chop chop but she estimates it makes up a quarter of tobacco being smoked in Australia. It is thought to be most popular in low socio-economic communities. She says that people who use it often believe it is healthier because it has fewer chemicals. However, chemical analysis shows that it can be contaminated with a variety of substances, including twigs, pulp from raw cotton, raw tobacco, hay, fungi and chloride products. It can cause toxic responses in the lungs, liver and kidneys that range from bronchitis, asthma and allergic reactions to lung cancer and legionnaire’s disease.

It’s safer

When Australia’s tobacco farms closed, they were replaced by a black market in illegally grown and sold loose tobacco known as “chop chop tobacco for sale”. This is cheap compared with branded cigarettes, but it also lacks government taxes and health warnings and has no quality control or additive regulation.

Research shows that it can contain a variety of contaminants including twigs and pulp from raw cotton, hay, cabbage leaves, grass clippings and chloride products. Mould and fungi are also commonly found in samples of the tobacco. Smoking it can cause a range of illnesses from allergic reactions, chronic bronchitis and asthma through to lung cancer or legionnaire’s disease.

Renee Bittoun, who runs smoking cessation clinics at two Sydney hospitals, said the use of chop chop was rampant. Her survey of smokers attending her clinics found that half were using the illicit product. She believes it could account for up to a quarter of all tobacco being smoked in Australia.

It’s a tax cheat

When the last tobacco farms closed near the Victorian country town of Myrtleford three years ago, police and health officials thought they would put a stop to what smokers called ’chop chop’, the unbranded loose leaf tobacco that criminal syndicates sell. But the black market has continued to thrive.

Illicit tobacco involves any tobacco on which legally required duties and taxes have not been paid. It can include roughly processed homegrown tobacco – known as 'chop chop' – or manufactured products such as roll-your-own (RYO) and ready-made cigarettes that have been smuggled into Australia from overseas without paying customs duty.

The National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS) asks people whether they have bought branded, but illegal, duty-not-paid tobacco or cigarettes in the past month. The NDSHS results show that use of unbranded tobacco is growing rapidly. It is particularly popular among low socio-economic groups. However, the slapdash nature of regulation means that every time a raid takes down one shop, another opens nearby to exploit the same loophole.

It’s a scam

AN Australian crime syndicate is raking in a fortune as rising tobacco prices drive customers toward cheap illicit alternatives. The Herald Sun has found that the racket – involving supermarket fruit shops, corner stores and grocers – is costing taxpayers $1bn a year.

Illegal 'chop chop' tobacco is roughly processed (hence 'chop chop') and smuggled from overseas where customs duty is not paid. The tobacco tax gap is the difference between excise or customs duty calculated under legislation and the actual amount collected during a financial year.

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