Quit Smoking Weapons Of Mass Distraction

Since the 1950s when the evidence on smoking causing serious, fatal diseases began consolidating, hundreds of millions of smokers have quit. Overwhelmingly, the great majority quit unassisted without any professional or pharmaceutical help. But from the late 1970s, massive campaigns have urged smokers not to go the cold turkey route and instead take nicotine replacement therapy, prescribed drugs and most recently, to vape. Simon Chapman is a veteran researcher, a global public health advocate and an Australian Skeptic of the Year. In this book he analyses the relentless push to medicalise and commodify quitting and sets out those policies and campaigns which have collectively driven smoking rates down to record low levels.

Who keeps telling smokers they can’t quit without help? For decades there have been far more ex-smokers than smokers, and an estimated 75% of smokers quit without drugs or professional help. But smoking cessation is a global phenomenon serviced by multibillion-dollar industries, including the pharmaceutical and e-cigarette sectors and health professionals. These industries try to denigrate unassisted cessation and promote their products and services – “weapons of mass distraction” – as essential to successful quitting. This contributes to the medicalisation of a process that, before these products were available, had a natural history where drugs and expertise were absent, yet millions of people around the world still quit. Simon Chapman AO is one of Australia’s foremost experts on strategies to minimise harm from tobacco. In Quit Smoking Weapons of Mass Distraction, he reviews the early history of quitting smoking and the rise of assisted quitting, and gives insight into the forces that have tried to undermine smokers’ agency to stop. Chapman also provides actionable policy solutions to help people actually quit smoking. "This is a splendid read for anyone interested in what really works to reduce smoking, and what helps to keep Big Tobacco in business." — Mike Daube AO, Emeritus Professor in Public Health, Curtin University "Chapman is indispensable reading for anyone wanting to help the billion-odd smokers end their addiction. A powerful and important book!" — Robert N. Proctor, Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University

As the strategic rivalry between the United States and China rapidly deepens, growing distrust and fears of China are once again shaping Australian media coverage and public discourse, with potent implications for Australia’s China policy. At this crucial historical moment, Engaging China offers a full-throated defence of engagement. This volume brings together a diverse set of Australia’s seasoned diplomats, experienced journalists and renowned scholars to assess the current state of Australia–China relations and offer pragmatic advice for how Australia can restore a healthy and stable relationship with China. Over the past five decades, Australia’s engagement of China has facilitated a deepening economic relationship alongside expanded cultural, educational and people-to-people exchanges, fostering greater understanding between the two countries and populations. The contributors to this volume share a common vision: Australia and Australians should continue to engage with China and Chinese people for mutual benefit. The chapters take stock of past achievements, identify recent challenges and offer practical suggestions for how the Australian government and Australian firms, institutions and individuals can proactively, productively and securely engage with China. Australia’s rich and diverse relations with China extend far beyond the political and economic interactions that tend to dominate news headlines. In explaining how and why an engagement strategy continues to serve Australian interests, Engaging China offers a timely alternative to the prevailing public and policy discourses on Australia’s most challenging bilateral relationship.

Australian Universities: A conversation about public good highlights contemporary challenges facing Australian universities and offers new ideas for expanding public good. More than 20 experts take up the debate about our public universities: who they are for; what their mission is (or should be); what strong higher education policy entails; and how to cultivate a robust and constructive relationship between government and Australian universities. Issues covered include: – How to change a culture of exclusion to ensure all are welcome in universities, especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students as well as those from low socio-economic backgrounds. – How "educational disadvantage" in Australia often begins in school and is still the major barrier to full university participation. – The reality that funding for research and major infrastructure requires significant additional funds from non-government sources (e.g. international student fees). – A lack of policy recognition that international university students increase Australia’s social, cultural and economic capital. – Pathways to making policy decisions wide-ranging, consultative, inclusive and inspired rather than politically partisan and ideologically driven. – The impact of COVID-19 on universities, and particularly how the pandemic and governmental responses exacerbated extant and emerging issues. Australian Universities rekindles a much-needed conversation about the vital role of public universities in our society, arguing for initiatives informed by the realities of university life and offering a way forward for government, communities, students and public universities – together – to advance public good.

Australia is at a much-needed turning point in work, care and family policy. Australian women, families and communities are struggling to manage the complex demands of work and care. Rapid social and demographic change, alongside new workplace, labour market trends and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, requires a policy revamp that will allow all Australians to work, care and be cared for. In seven chapters authored by leading scholars in the field, At a Turning Point: Work, care and family policies in Australia provides a comprehensive account of key policy areas that shape the experience of work and care across the life course. These include reproductive wellbeing, paid parental leave, early childhood education and care, flexible work, elder and disability care, and equitable systems of tax and transfer payments. At a Turning Point argues that a new social contract that puts gender equality, economic security and the well-being of carers and those they care for at the centre of policy design is essential to national productivity and prosperity. It is the foundation of a good society.

These lists, arranged by genre, director, or actor, answer that most difficult of questions: what DVD should you rent for the night?

Smoke Signals gathers 71 of Professor Simon Chapman’s authoritative, acerbic and often heretical essays written in newspapers, blogs and research journals across his 40-year career. They cover major developments and debates in tobacco control, public health ethics, cancer screening, gun control and panics about low risk agents like wi-fi, mobile phone towers and wind turbines. This collection is an essential guide to the landscape of many key debates in contemporary public health. It will be invaluable to public health students and practitioners, while remaining compelling reading for all interested in health policy. When is Simon Chapman the academic, intellectual, self-appointed chief wowser of the nanny state gunna leave us alone? Steve Price, Australian radio broadcaster His insane wibblings are worrying yes, but still bloody funny to read. Christopher Snowdon, Institute of Economic Affairs, London Simon Chapman is emeritus professor in public health at the University of Sydney. He has won the World Health Organization’s medal for tobacco control (1998), the American Cancer Society’s Luther Terry Award for outstanding individual leadership in tobacco control (2003), and was NSW Premier’s Cancer Researcher of the Year medal (2008). In 2013 he was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for his contributions to public health and named 2013 Australian Skeptic of the Year. In 2014, the Australian right-wing think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs, named him as one of Australia’s Dirty Dozen all-time “opponents of freedom”.