Time to remove cigarettes from groceries

There were no takeaways, flat whites or fresh-baked pies. No new magazines to read. No haircuts to be had. Lockdown level 4 was reduced to essentials only. Such as cigarettes.

In the scramble to categorise what was in and what was out, you may not have given much thought to the cigarette conundrum. Shops were to keep supplying a product that kills 13 New Zealanders a day, while we locked ourselves down to save . . . the lives of New Zealanders.

Cigarettes were deemed so essential that a tobacco factory in Petone kept operating while the country was at a standstill, even though the majority of New Zealand’s cigarette stock is produced elsewhere.

We understood the reasoning for making cigarettes ‘essential’: cutting off supplies at a time of high anxiety would have been an extra burden on people who smoke. But this decision should be a wake-up call for New Zealand. By acknowledging that cigarettes remain deeply ingrained in our communities, the

Government is revealing just how far it has fallen behind its Smokefree 2025 goal.

There’s a myth that young people don’t smoke any more. In fact, 15 per cent of people aged between 18 and 24 in New Zealand smoke. There are also population groups in this country among whom smoking rates remain alarmingly high: — 21 per cent of Pacific peoples smoke, rising to 31 per cent for Ma¯ ori.

One of the big ways the tobacco industry targets consumers is via the widespread availability of its products. Simply pop down to your local supermarket, petrol station, dairy, liquor store, $2 shop . . . there are currently no restrictions on where cigarettes can be sold, making it too easy to buy them on impulse.

For people who have quit smoking, the mental load of having cigarettes everywhere is taxing. Every time they go to purchase everyday items such as bread or milk, they have to make a conscious decision not to buy cigarettes.

The Ministry of Health pulls no punches in its opinion of cigarettes on its website, saying: ‘‘The Government is determined to reduce the horrendous burden of death and disease caused by smoking.’’

And yet here we are, still accepting the devastating toll cigarettes have on our communities.

It is time to take a stronger stance towards the tobacco industry: restrict where cigarettes are sold, get them away from grocery items and into specialist R18 tobacco shops.

This will support people who smoke but want to quit and make it much more difficult for young people to start. Do this for the sake of all those who will die from smoking.

Lucy Elwood is chief executive of the Cancer Society of New Zealand/te Ka¯ hui Matepukupuku o Aotearoa.