250 Firebombings: Australia’s Tobacco and Vape War Has Reached Breaking Point

By Pippa Starr

29 August 2025

Australia has now hit a grim milestone: 250 tobacco and vape war firebombings since 2023.Yesterday alone, two more tobacconists were torched, one in Edwardstown, South Australia, and another in Flinders Park, Hindmarsh, the electorate of none other than Federal Health Minister Mark Butler. That fire marked the 250th firebombing nationwide, a staggering number that should shake every level of government out of its complacency.

This is no longer a “gang war.” It’s a national public safety crisis, born from reckless public health policy.

“My Business is Destroyed, and No One Cares”

I spoke to business owners in shops adjacent to the latest arson attacks. Their words are devastating:

This is not an isolated tragedy. Across Australia, countless businesses next door to these targeted outlets have never recovered. Some are still shuttered, some struggling under debt, others uninsured and abandoned. The destruction radiates far beyond the tobacconists themselves, it tears holes in entire communities.

Human Lives Lost

This war has already claimed innocent lives. Katie Tangey was burned alive in a horrific arson attack linked to Victoria’s tobacco wars, a death that was both tragic and entirely preventable. She is not alone. Every new blaze puts residents, workers, and bystanders at risk of injury or death. 2 young children were nearly burned alive and sufferered severe smoke inhalation, as well as several other extremely near missies have happened in this dark recent history of these avoidable tobacco and vape wars!

Politicians Ignoring the Flames

Despite the evidence piling up, governments continue to double down on policies that fuel this crisis:

• Vape bans that push millions of adult consumers into the black market.

• Sky-high tobacco taxes that make illicit trade irresistible.

• Weak enforcement that allows organized crime to flourish.

Even when the flames are burning in his own backyard, Health Minister Mark Butler has remained extremely defensive of his failed policies and remarkably silent on the ongoing effects in this public emergency situation.

The question must be asked: How many more shops must burn before politicians accept responsibility for the chaos their policies have unleashed?

The Bigger Picture

Australia is paying the price for prohibition dressed up as health policy. While experts overseas champion tobacco harm reduction through regulated access to safer alternatives, here we’ve chosen bans and eyewatering taxes on legal sales that enrich organized crime and put ordinary Australians in harm’s way.

Every firebombing is more than just an attack on a shop, it is an attack on the livelihoods, safety, and wellbeing of Australians who did nothing wrong but happened to be nearby.

A National Shame

250 firebombings. Businesses destroyed. Lives lost. Families shattered. Communities left unsafe.

This is a national shame, and it is a crisis entirely of our own making. Until we replace prohibition with regulation on vapes and reel in tobacco taxes and give Australians safer, legal alternatives, the firebombings will continue. And more innocent lives will be lost in the flames. Clearly enforcement efforts have failed and have no chance of controlling this ever escalating disaster!

Federal and State Govt's has spent collectively over a billion dollars on this and this is the result!

Australian's need to stand up to this before more lives and livelihoods are lost!