24 November, 2023
ASH is dismayed at the new
coalition government’s announcement today that it will
repeal the country’s Smokefree laws, removing requirements
for denicotinisation and halting a reduction in retail
outlets selling tobacco.
ASH says Aotearoa has made
huge progress reducing smoking in recent years, especially
with people switching to vaping. Viable, safer and cheaper
alternates to smoking have enabled us to be bold, and to
introduce world leading smokefree laws that would end
tobacco smoking.
ASH says the Smokefree Environments
and Regulated Products (smoked tobacco) Amendment Act 2022
is a world first and it would spell the end of the tobacco
industry in Aotearoa, an industry whose cigarette products
continue to claim the lives of almost 5,000 New Zealanders
every year.
ASH Director Ben Youdan says, “We are
shocked that one of the coalition’s first health measures is
to essentially grant a pardon to tobacco companies, and
allow them to continue selling products that kill almost
5000 New Zealanders every year.“
“Repealing the
ACT puts the interests of the cigarette industry before the
health of the nation. This will prolong the harm and
suffering that smoked tobacco is causing to New Zealanders,
especially those in the most vulnerable cohorts,” Ben
Youdan says. Māori and Pacific people suffer the majority
of premature deaths and illness from smoking.
The
coalition government has also announced that it will
introduce serious penalties for selling vapes to under 18s
and will consider a liquor licence being required to sell
vapes. ASH says this move is a distraction from the fact
that repealing the smoked tobacco retail cap, and
denicotinisation laws will leave deadly smoking tobacco for
sale everywhere.
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Ben Youdan says, “Rather than leap
straight into a dangerous and irresponsible repeal of our
smokefree laws we encourage the coalition government to
constructively address any concerns through regulation and
working with scientific evidence.”
ASH says it has
taken more than a decade to achieve this legislation,
building on years of work and backed by huge public support.
New Zealand is so close to achieving it’s goal of being
smokefree by 2025 and have a generation free of smoked
tobacco, undoing this now will set back the fight to end
smoking related death and disease by
years.
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