The Tobacco Control Branch (TCB) of the Department of Health is located within the Environmental Health Directorate of the Public Health Division. The TCB, formerly known as Quit WA, is responsible for:
- State-wide tobacco control policy development, coordination and strategic planning
- Administration and monitoring of legislative tobacco control measures
- Coordination and funding of tobacco cessation services including the Quitline telephone cessation service, and production and distribution of cessation self help material
- Monitoring and collating evaluation of the performance of tobacco control programs
Tobacco Licensing:
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New Tobacco Control Legislation
The Tobacco Products Control Act 2006 [PDF] contains provisions about:
- Sale and supply of tobacco products (including vending machines)
- Tobacco advertising and promotion
- Licensing of sellers of tobacco products
- Western Australian Health Promotion Foundation (Healthway)
- Investigations
- Enforcement
- Smoking in enclosed public places
Regulations
The Tobacco Products Control Regulations 2006 were developed in consultation with industry and include provisions about tobacco displays, warning signs (including health warning signs [PDF / 82KB]) and other matters.
The Tobacco Problem
Tobacco accounts for over 19,000 avoidable deaths in Australia each year. In Western Australia between 1983 and 2001, tobacco was responsible for a total of 29,044 deaths, an average of over 1,500 per year.
Research shows that half of all smokers will die before their time, and half of these will die in middle age. Diseases caused by tobacco smoking account for around one-third of the leading causes of death in Australia. Smoking has been identified as a major cause of heart disease, stroke, and several different forms of cancer, emphysema, impotence, infertility and unhealthy birth-weight and a wide variety of other health problems.
File Formats
Some documents for download on this website are in a Portable Document Format (PDF). To read these files you might need to download Adobe® Acrobat Reader.