The Rebellion: The People Take the Mic

Alan Gor 22 October 2025

In the first two parts of this series, Public Health Theatre: Now Playing Across Australia, and The Sequel: Prohibition Strikes Back, we exposed how a nation once known for evidence-based health policy became trapped in a moral crusade. We unpacked the spin, the silence, and the strange rewriting of data that turned harm reduction into heresy.

Those pieces revealed a system more focused on control than compassion, where everyday Australians who quit smoking through vaping were painted as villains, and where “public health” had become a stage play scripted by bureaucrats, "academic advisors", and applauded by media echo chambers.

But this next chapter is different.

Because every show eventually meets its audience, and this time, the audience is fighting back. Every long-running show eventually loses its crowd. The actors keep reciting the same tired lines, the plot stops making sense, and the audience starts shouting back. That’s exactly what’s happening now in Australia’s Public Health Theatre.

For years, the story has been one-sided, written by bureaucrats, performed by academics, and applauded by the media. But the people living it, the consumers, ex-smokers, and small business owners, have finally had enough.

The rebellion has begun.

Scene One: The Silenced Majority

For too long, people who vape have been treated like a problem to be managed, not a group to be heard. Every time a new expert panel meets to discuss vaping, the seats are filled with the same voices, the same public health officials, the same anti-vaping advocates, the same script.

Meanwhile, those who’ve actually quit smoking through vaping are told their stories don’t count.

They’re told they were lucky, that they did it the wrong way, or that their success somehow sends the wrong message.

But their message is simple: vaping saved my life.

And they’re done being ignored.

Scene Two: The Human Evidence

Across Australia, thousands of people will have stories that statistics will never show. The mother who finally quits after decades of smoking. The tradie who switches to vaping to save his lungs and his wallet. The young woman who avoids smoking altogether because she finds a safer alternative first.

These are the real outcomes of harm reduction, the victories that public health will keep refusing to celebrate.

Instead, the government will criminalise them, the media will demonise them, and experts will dismiss them as anecdotes. But when thousands of people tell the same story, that’s not a coincidence. That’s the truth.

And it will be stronger than any headline.

Scene Three: The Experts Who Listen

Change will begin when those in power start listening instead of lecturing. When they sit down with the people living these realities, they will see what the data alone can’t show.

They will learn that the slogans, scare campaigns, and moralising don’t help people quit; they shame them, isolate them, and reinforce stigma instead of support. They will learn that harm reduction isn’t about politics or optics, it’s about compassion, respect, and real-world outcomes.

Some will start to use language that recognises humanity, saying people who smoke instead of smokers. It’s a small shift, but it signals a much bigger change: treating people as individuals, not statistics.

And over time, that will change everything. The wall between researcher and consumer will begin to crumble. The conversation will move from control to collaboration, and public health will finally start to resemble something worthy of its name.

Scene Four: The Digital Uprising

The real conversation is already happening, just not where the government expects it.

On social media, ordinary Australians are sharing their stories. They’re showing how they quit, how they’re being punished for it, and how out of touch the system has become. They’re posting screenshots of the TGA’s absurd vape list, exposing contradictions in Roy Morgan’s rewritten reports, and calling out journalists who recycle government talking points as truth.

It’s messy, raw, and unfiltered, but that’s what makes it real.

This is what democracy looks like when institutions stop listening. The people make their own media, their own movement, and their own voice.

And while politicians dismiss it as misinformation, the truth keeps spreading faster than their spin.

Scene Five: The Turning Point

The rebellion isn’t just about vaping anymore. It’s about trust.

When governments rewrite data, when the media repeats propaganda, and when public health treats adults like children, people begin to question everything, and they should.

Australia’s vaping prohibition has become a symbol of something much bigger. It shows what happens when ideology replaces evidence and control replaces compassion.

But every movement for change starts the same way — with people who refuse to be silenced. Consumers are now organising, connecting, and demanding a seat at the table. They are not waiting for permission. They are taking the mic.

Final Scene: The Rewrite

The beauty of any story is that it can be rewritten. This one doesn’t have to end with prohibition, black markets, and mistrust. It can end with progress with adults being treated like adults, with regulation that protects instead of punishes, and with policies that put people before politics.

Real harm reduction means regulation, not prohibition. It means honesty, not spin. And most of all, it means listening, really listening to the people who have lived it.

Because the truth is simple: if public health actually worked with the public, everyone would win.

Until that day comes, the rebellion will continue louder, stronger, and impossible to ignore.

The people have taken the mic.

And this time, they’re not giving it back.

The old show is collapsing. The audience has stopped clapping. And from the crowd, a new voice is rising, one that refuses to be silenced.

The curtain is falling on Public Health Theatre.

And this time, the people are writing the sequel.

So rise, speak, challenge, and demand better. Because real change doesn’t come from the stage. It comes from the crowd that finally stands and says, Enough.