Data on quantities of tobacco products manufactured in Australia are available electronically back to 1957 to 2004. 1 Various Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publications have also included statistics on exports and imports of products including tobacco, for example see ABS 5368.0 International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia, 2 but historical data on tobacco exports and imports have not ever been compiled into a single document or time-series dataset.
2.1.1 Tobacco products manufactured in Australia
Table 2.1.1 shows the volume of total tobacco products produced in Australia since 1957. Publication of data on production of cigarettes and other tobacco products was discontinued by the ABS in 2004.
Data for selected years are plotted in Figure 2.1.1.
The total weight of tobacco products manufactured in Australia has clearly declined substantially since it peaked at 33 300 metric tonnes in 1975.
2.1.2 Manufactured tobacco products, adjusted for imports and exports
Data on manufactured tobacco products are of limited usefulness in estimating consumption as they include tobacco products produced for export and do not include tobacco products imported into Australia.
In February 2003 the Tobacco Free Initiative of the World Health Organization (WHO) released a discussion paper on trends in cigarette use that did include estimates of such exports and imports. The analysis covered several dozen countries including Australia for the years 1970 to 2000. 4 These estimates were based on data from a combination of official trade statistics and data collected by research agencies in surveys of tobacco companies. The Australian data on numbers of cigarettes produced came from the United States Department of Agriculture from 1970 to 1989, and then from (private sector) market research agency, ERC Statistics International Plc. 5 Data on quantities of cigarettes imported and exported came from databases compiled by the United Nations. 6, 7 Estimates for Australia are included in Table 2.1.2.
Using this mix of the available data sets, it would seem that the total number of cigarettes consumed in Australia peaked in 1981, increased slightly over the early 1990s and declined by about one-third between 1990 and 2000 and then increased slightly over the 2000s.
Note: these data relate to cigarettes only, not to any other type of tobacco product.
2.1.3 Manufactured and imported tobacco products per capita
To take account of increases in population over this 30-year period, Guindon and Boisclair's report for the WHO also included estimates of per capita consumption. Per capita consumption is calculated using the number of people 15 years and over. The figures included in the WHO study and reproduced in Figure 2.1.2 (and the figures since 2001 using the additional data source indicated above) are three-year running averages based on consumption in the listed and previous two years.
These data suggest that per capita consumption of cigarettes has declined significantly since 1970, with almost a 50% reduction in the estimated number of cigarettes consumed per capita between 1980 (at which time the average per capita cigarette consumption for the previous three years had peaked at 3215 cigarettes) and 2010 (by which time average per capita consumption for the previous three years had reduced to little more than 1250 cigarettes per person 15 years and older).
2.1.4 International comparisons of tobacco production
eInternational Cigarette Consumption Database project 15 has compiled annual cigarette consumption data for a number of countries based on various sources of sales, production, imports and exports figures for cigarettes and tobacco. This data is presented for selected countries, including Australia, as per capita cigarette consumption in Figure 2.1.3.
Figure 2.1.3 shows that, between 1970 and 2010, per capita cigarette consumption in Australia was highest in 1980 and then steadily declined, and that most other countries showed a similar pattern. Per capita consumption was 62% lower in 2010 compared to 1980 in Australia. This was a similar proportional decline to Canada (68%), Ireland (64%), the United States (64%), and South Africa (62%). Consumption in all selected countries declined by at least 49%. The decline in absolute volume of cigarettes was also similar across Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United States (approximately 2000-2400 sticks).
References
1. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 8301.0 Manufacturing production, Australia, Jun 2004. Canberra: ABS, 2004. Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyReleaseDate/0EE34227E473B969CA256FFD007A2D4F?OpenDocument
2. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 5368.0 International Trade in Goods and Services, Australia Canberra: ABS, 2011. Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyCatalogue/A5FB33BD2E3CC68FCA257496001547A1?OpenDocument
3. Australian Bureau of Statistics. 8301.0.55.001 Manufacturing production, Australia, Jun 2006. Canberra: ABS, 2006. Updated September 2006 [viewed October 2006] ; Available from: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyCatalogue/846FE96282EACCBBCA256F48007063C6?OpenDocument
4. Guindon G and Boisclair D. Past, Current and Future Trends in Tobacco Use. New York: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank, 2003. Available from: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/HEALTHNUTRITIONANDPOPULATION/Resources/281627-1095698140167/Guindon-PastCurrent-whole.pdf
5. ERC Statistics International Plc. The World Cigarette Market: The 1998 Survey. Suffolk, Great Britain: 2001. Available from: http://www.erc-world.com/
6. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). FAO statistical databases. 2001. [viewed not by author] ; Available from: http://www.fao.org/
7. United Nations Statistics Division. Commodity trade statistics data base. 2000. Available from: http://comtrade.un.org/db/default.aspx
8. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. Drugs in Australia 2010: tobacco, alcohol and other drugs. Drug statistics series no. 27, cat. no. PHE 154. Canberra: AIHW, 2011. Available from: http://www.aihw.gov.au/publication-detail/?id=10737420497&tab=2
9. United Nations Statistics Division. Commodity trade statistics data base 2001 to 2010. 2011. [viewed December 2011] ; Available from: http://comtrade.un.org/db/default.aspx
10. Eriksen M, Mackay J and Ross H. The Tobacco Atlas. 4th Edition. New York and Altanta, GA: World Lung Foundation and American Cancer Society, 2012. Available from: http://www.tobaccoatlas.org/
11. US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Centre. Tobacco Statistics (94012). 1996.
12. ERC Statistics International Plc. The World Cigarette Market: the 2010 Survey - Australia. London: ERC Statistics International Plc, 2011. Available from: http://www.erc-world.com/sample/tob/Cigarette%20Indexes/Australia.pdf
13. Chapman S. Changes in adult cigarette consumption per head in 128 countries 1986–90 . Tobacco Control 1992;1:281–4. Available from: http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/1/4/281
14. Euromonitor International. Tobacco in Australia, Global Market Information Database, 2010. London: Euromonitor International, 2011. Updated September 2010 [viewed 9 December 2011] ; Available from: http://www.euromonitor.com
15. Poirier MJP, Guindon GE, Sritharan L, Hoffman SJ. International Cigarette Consumption Database v1.0. Scholars Portal Dataverse. Available at: https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/AOVUW7