Get tougher on smoking, MPs told

WELLINGTON: The Government will have to ban the sale of cigarettes if it wants to reach its goal of making New Zealand smokefree by 2025, MPs have been told.

Public health advocates and academics also said the Government had to more aggressively encourage less harmful alternatives to help people who have failed to quit smoking tobacco.

At a briefing on the Smokefree 2025 target at Parliament yesterday, Hapai Te Hauora chief executive Grant Norman said there was no way the target would be reached on existing settings.

‘‘Categorically, I am saying that upfront,’’ he said.

Ministry of Health figures show nearly 16% (down from 20.1% in 2006) of New Zealanders smoke, including 35% of Maori and 25% of Pacific Islanders.

The smokefree target set by the Government requires smoking rates to fall below 5% by 2025.

‘‘We are nowhere near that,’’ Mr Norman said.

His organisation made three recommendations to MPs if they

wanted to reach the goal:

Urgently encourage harm minimisation products such as ecigarettes and vaping.

Ban the sale of cigarettes by 2025.

Spend more of the tobacco excise tax on promoting harmminimisation products and supporting vulnerable families.

Mr Norman said there would not be 5000 deaths a year from smokingrelated diseases if the product was not available.

‘‘So our view is we should have an aggressive strategy to get rid of the product.’’

It would require passing legislation almost immediately to outlaw the sale of cigarettes in 2025.

There are already moves under way to encourage ecigarette use in New Zealand as a way of reducing the harm of smoking, but Mr Norman said they needed to be accelerated.

Some ecigarettes were 95% less harmful than conventional cigarettes and had a similar level of nicotine to a patch, he said.

He said the products should be promoted through public campaigns funded by tobacco taxes. Less than 3% of the $2 billion annual tax take from tobacco sales went into public campaigns and support for people to quit smoking.

The Maori Affairs select committee held an inquiry in 2010 on tobacco use and its effect on Maori, and made 42 recommendations to the Government.

Ash programme manager Boyd Broughton said the previous Government had cherrypicked the most ‘‘politically palatable’’ recommendations and as a result little progress had been made since 2010 towards cutting smoking rates. — NZME