Smoking targets fall far behind

Thousands more must kick habit in the butt by 2025 to meet 5 per cent goal

Another 17,200 New Zealanders need to quit smoking each year until 2025 if we are to reach the goal of less than 5 per cent of the population smoking daily by then, a new study has found.

That figure is more than double the current quit rate, according to the study, published in today’s New Zealand Medical Journal.

The research, headed up by Professor Nick Wilson of the department of public health at Otago University’s Wellington campus, found the country was set to fall far short of the Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 goal if the current trend continued.

It was estimated that, following the current trend, 17.4 per cent of Maori and 7.2 per cent of non-Maori people would be smoking in 2025.

That meant an average of 8400 Maori and 8800 non-Maori more long-term quitters were needed each year.

The authors estimated Quitline and funded face-to-face smoking cessation services helped 8100 people quit each year — 2000 Maori and 6100 non-Maori.

That worked out to be only 19 per cent of the Maori quitters and 34 per cent of the non-Ma¯ ori quitters needed each year to reach the 2025 goal.

Based on the figures, the authors concluded an unrealistically large increase in the use of cessation services would be needed to meet the target so other strategies were needed.

They proposed the continuation of large tax increases on tobacco, extra funding for cessation services and advertising campaigns as well as subsidies to help people switch to e-cigarettes.

The authors also suggested more extreme measures which would involve a law change such as a sinking lid policy on tobacco supply, reducing the number of tobacco retail outlets and restricting the sale of tobacco to low-nicotine products.

Hapai Te Hauora general manager for the National Tobacco Control Advisory Service Mihi Blair agreed the country was a long way from meeting the target.

She said the services available were good but were not reaching many of the people who really needed them.

Funding was going to the district health boards in large part but a lot of Maori and Pacific smokers were more likely to go to friends or whanau ora services.

Blair was also supportive of some of the more extreme measures.

“We need to reduce supply around our high deprivation communities urgently,” she said. “There is four times more supply in our high deprivation areas than our low deprivation communities.”

But methods like reducing supply and increasing tax would only work if they were paired with specialised quitting services and other options which were a pathway to quitting like

vaping, she said. Associate Minister of Health Jenny Salesa acknowledged the 2025 target was a “huge challenge” but said the Government remained committed to it, especially in light of the 5000 smoking-related deaths each year. The Government had been looking at the impact the tobacco taxation policy was having and was working on initiatives targeted at Maori and Pacific people.