Medical professionals, teachers, community workers, NGOs, voters, and young people from Dunedin and throughout Aotearoa have united to express their shock and disappointment at the government’s plans to repeal world-leading Smokefree legislation.
If implemented, the Act would greatly reduce the number of stores selling tobacco, decrease the nicotine content of tobacco so it is no longer addictive, and create a smokefree cohort that can never legally be sold tobacco.
The legislation, informed by detailed research, should appeal strongly to the coalition government, which has made clear its intention to make evidence-based decisions.
Furthermore, measures outlined in the new law are predicted to save thousands of lives and billions of dollars in healthcare costs.
Evidence supporting denicotinisation, which would make tobacco essentially non-addictive, and so much easier to quit, comes from large randomised controlled trials, regarded as the gold standard of research evidence.
These studies, conducted in New Zealand and internationally, consistently show that people given low nicotine cigarettes quickly lose interest in smoking; they become more motivated to quit and more likely to become smokefree.
This evidence is likely why people who smoke, the vast majority of whom regret ever having started smoking, support making tobacco non-addictive.
So too do young people living in New Zealand: our recent work found 68% supported or strongly supported denicotinisation, while only 18% opposed or strongly opposed this measure.
The logic of decreasing tobacco’s widespread availability comes from marketing theory as well as empirical studies.
Robert Woodruff, Coca-Cola’s former president, epitomised the logic of reducing tobacco supply when he explained the company’s goal of ensuring its product was always: "Within an arm’s reach of desire."
Large reviews based on epidemiological studies have found that young people living in areas where many stores sell tobacco are more likely to take up smoking than young people living where there are fewer outlets.
Again, young people we surveyed overwhelmingly supported reducing the number of tobacco outlets; 78% supported or strongly supported this measure, with only 15% opposing or strongly opposing it.
The smokefree generation policy has been implemented in a US city, though has not yet been evaluated.
However, theory and public support explain why this measure is so important. Increasing the legal age of sale each year asserts young people’s right to be protected from a product that kills two thirds of its long-term users while also making it clear that tobacco is not a normal consumer product.
Nearly 80% of the young people we surveyed supported or strongly supported this measure, while only 14% opposed or strongly opposed it.
Robust peer-reviewed modelling studies have drawn on theory and used findings from trials and epidemiological studies to predict each measure’s likely impact. This work provides further evidence that the smokefree legislation passed by the former Labour government would bring rapid and equitable reductions in smoking prevalence.
Yet, when the ODT asked local National and New Zealand First MPs for their views on doctors’ concerns, did reporters receive the evidence-based responses the coalition government has repeatedly claimed will underpin their decision-making?
Sadly, when given an opportunity to demonstrate they knew and understood high quality research, the MPs questioned could only offer vague assertions based on unproven assumptions.
New Zealand First’s Mark Patterson, whose party website indicates he has no clinical background, felt qualified to describe the expert view of clinicians who deal daily with cancer cases as "catastrophising". As an added illogical flourish, he described the measures as "nanny state", a claim often relied on by tobacco companies when opposing clear, rational policies.
While other MPs’ responses did not reach the new nadir in incoherence set by Mr Patterson, none showed any grasp of the evidence: all relied on scaremongering about illicit trade.
Tobacco companies routinely claim proportionate new policies will lead to black market trade, despite evidence to the contrary. There is no robust evidence that black market tobacco trade would increase following implementation of the smokefree legislation. The only New Zealand reports suggesting a rise in illicit trade have been funded by tobacco companies, whose reputation for honesty and integrity cannot be described as robust. For the record, independent studies show the illicit tobacco market is stable or declining; in-depth studies have found people were reluctant to engage with black market traders and suspicious of the product that might be sold.
The most logical response to an illicit market is to drive down demand for the product. That is exactly what the evidence indicates the new smokefree legislation would achieve.
National still has an opportunity to correct this politically damaging misstep and show leadership that reflects the evidence, which is comprehensive and widely available to all who wish to see it.
— Prof Janet Hoek is co-director of the University of Otago (Wellington) Aspire 2025 Research Centre. Co-authors were Aspire members Jude Ball, Richard Edwards, Andrew Waa, Philip Gendall, Janine Nip, Ellen Ozarka and Jacqui Hadingham.
