Government moves to ban bongs

The federal government wants to ban the sale of bongs in a move some states say is a smokescreen for a reluctance to force tougher rules on tobacco companies.

Canberra was accused of using the ban on bongs, used for smoking marijuana, as an ambush tactic at Wednesday's Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy meeting in Adelaide.

The states wanted the federal government to commit to ensuring disclosure of ingredients on tobacco products, but received only an assurance of a feasibility study into the idea.

Instead, the commonwealth pushed forward investigations into banning the sale, importation and advertising of bongs and products made for cannabis use.

"The commonwealth's ban the bong campaign is a little bit of tricky politics," NSW Health Minister Reba Meagher said.

"It's really designed to disguise the fact they have refused to embrace the call from the states to require tobacco companies to release the list of products that go into making cigarettes, it's designed to take away attention from that."

But federal Ageing Minister and council member Christopher Pyne said disclosing ingredients of cigarette contents presented potential problems.

"The commonwealth has a preference for the listing of ingredients on tobacco products as long as it is feasible to do so," Mr Pyne said.

"And as long as it doesn't leave open the possibility of legal liability or undermine a very strong message that every cigarette does you damage - we'd hate to have people saying they have had a look at the ingredients and these cigarettes are better for them than other kinds of cigarettes.

"So the commonwealth has agreed to go forward with a feasibility study. Our preference is to provide consumers with as much information as possible."

Mr Pyne said initiating action about potentially banning bongs was "a great step forward".