Last month, Health Minister Greg Hunt wrote that doctors are free to prescribe ivermectin for the prevention and early treatment of COVID-19. On Friday the Therapeutic Goods Administration countermanded its minister and banned the drug. Like its move to make e-cigarettes available only on prescription such moves suggest the regulatory body is a law unto itself

Australia began as a penal colony. Do we wish to become once again a people subject to indefinite incarceration? The choice is simple: either accept that some, mostly over 80, will die each year from COVID-19 or bow to politicians who condemn us to confinement because they take their 'expert advice' selectively and refuse to acknowledge obvious epidemiological patterns?

Only time will tell if the regulations about to be introduced by the bureaucrats of Therapeutic Goods Administration will have the desired effect of reducing Australians' affection for nicotine in any and all forms. Economics and history suggest, however, that the chief beneficiaries will be the underworld, already doing very nicely from the booming under-the-counter market in smuggled, tax-free cigarettes