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Tackling Tobacco program

Tackling Tobacco is an organisational change-based program that aims to embed smoking cessation support within organisations that serve priority populations. The Tackling Tobacco program works alongside community services who serve priority populations to identify tailored solutions for addressing smoking at their service and integrate it into the work they are already doing.

Make Smoking History

Make Smoking History works to reduce the prevalence of smoking in Western Australia by raising awareness of the harms of smoking. The program also shares the benefits of quitting, by providing information and resources to help people who smoke to quit. Make Smoking History also influences public opinion and policy on key smoking health issues.

Make Smoking History is run by Cancer Council WA and funded by the Department of Health, Healthway and Cancer Council WA. Our core areas of work include priority settings, anti-smoking campaigns and policy and research.

Visit the Make Smoking History website for information on:

  • Tips and support to quit smoking
  • The health impacts of smoking
  • The benefits of quitting
  • Supporting health, community and corrective services to address smoking
  • Information on smoking and the law
  • Information on where you can and can’t smoke
  • Details on smoke-free workplaces
  • Stories from people who have successfully quit smoking
  • How to support a loved one to quit smoking
  • Our anti-smoking campaigns

Significant tobacco control achievements over time have contributed to a decrease in smoking prevalence. In Western Australia, the prevalence of current adult smokers has halved from 21.8% in 2002, to 10.4% in 2020.

You might be surprised at how recently some of these changes came about:

  • 2006: Western Australian hotels, nightclubs and clubs to smoke-free
  • 2009: Smoking in cars carrying children is prohibited
  • 2012: All tobacco products in Australia are required to be sold in plain packaging
  • 2021: Removal of a smoking exemption for Crown Perth’s International Room

However, there is still a lot of work to be done to achieve a future free of tobacco harm. Efforts at state and national levels must be improved and strengthened for further progress to be made.

Our WA tobacco control priorities include:

  • Reducing supply and availability of tobacco products
  • Expanding smoke-free spaces
  • Intensifying media campaigning
  • Increasing support for groups with higher smoking prevalence, particularly people experiencing disadvantage
  • Support efforts to reduce the affordability of tobacco
  • Boosting investment in tobacco control at both state and national level