Colin graduated as a doctor from the University of Sydney in 1976 with honours. He worked as a general practitioner for nearly 30 years, with a special interest in smoking cessation.
He has an interest in all aspects of smoking cessation and tobacco control with a special interest in tobacco harm reduction – helping smokers who can’t quit to switch to safer nicotine products, such as vaping. He has now retired from medical practice and no longer sees patients.
He was a Conjoint Associate Professor in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales, Sydney from 2016-20 .
Colin has conducted hundreds of workshops and lectures around Australia and New Zealand teaching students, medical practitioners and other health professionals how to help smokers quit.
From 1987-97 he was actively involved through the University of New South Wales in researching, developing and teaching Smokescreen for the 1990s, a program for general practitioners to help smokers quit. Click here to see his current teaching schedule.
Colin is a strong believer in evidence-based medicine, i.e. using treatments that are proven to be effective in scientific studies. He has participated in many research studies on how to quit smoking and has published many articles in peer-reviewed medical journals. Click here to see or download some of his publications.
Colin is a member of the Smoking Cessation Guideline Expert Advisory Group that develops the RACGP Australian national smoking cessation guidelines.
He is the Founding Chairman of the Australian Tobacco Harm Reduction Association, a registered health promotion charity dedicated to raising awareness of low-risk nicotine products as a substitute for smoking for smokers who can’t quit.
He is a past Vice President of the Australian Association of Smoking Cessation Professionals, Australia’s peak body for experts in the field of smoking cessation.
He has served on the NSW Health Advisory Committee on Electronic Cigarettes and was on the Vaping Cessation Expert Panel for the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), commissioned by Ontario’s Ministry of Health.
He is also on the Expert Advisory Group for the Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Association (CAPHRA) and is an honorary mentor for the Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship Program, under the auspices of Knowledge Action Change, UK.
He is a reviewer for a range of peer-reviewed medical journals such as the British Medical Journal, Drug and Alcohol Review, Harm Reduction Journal, MedicineToday and the prestigious Cochrane Tobacco Group.
For 16 years, he was the editor of Your Health newsletter, a health education newsletter distributed by over 1,600 Australian GPs to their patients.
Colin is currently an investigator on an NHMRC-funded clinical trial on vaping at the National Drug and Alcohol Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
I have no financial or commercial relationship with any electronic cigarette or tobacco company. Never have, never will.