A University of Canterbury (UC) health sciences researcher has called for New Zealand’s public places to be declared smoke-free, according to a Voxy story.
As well as the more usual places targeted: bus stops, train stations, ferry terminals and beaches; the researcher includes streets and urban centers.
In fact, UC lecturer, Dr. Mark Wallace-Bell, was quoted as saying that bans should be imposed in any public space used by children and non-smokers.
Wallace-Bell wants the supply of tobacco to be limited by reducing the number of retail outlets, in part by forcing retailers to undergo costly registrations.
He especially wants the number of retailers to be reduced in ‘low socio-economic areas’ because, he says, the tobacco industry targets the poor and profits from them.
Overall, Wallace-Bell would like to see New Zealand’s approximately 10,000 tobacco retailers reduced by more than half.
It appears that he wants limits placed on the nicotine content of any tobacco sold in New Zealand and for nicotine eventually to be phased out, so as to reduce and then end tobacco addiction.
And he wants the tobacco industry to pay more to clear up what he describes as ‘the mess that it makes’.
Wallace-Bell said that only with such hard hitting measures in place would it be possible to achieve the ambitious goal of a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025.