As predicted, New Zealand was given a “Dirty Ashtray Award” by the Global Alliance for Tobacco Control (GATC) at the World Health Organization’s FCTC COP11. The “award” is a symbolic dishonor given to countries or delegations that “are seen as obstructing progress on tobacco control or aligning too closely with tobacco industry interests.” Even though New Zealand has one of the world’s lowest smoking rates and some of the strictest tobacco controls, Copwatch correctly predicted it would receive the slight because the nation openly promotes harm reduction.
The GATC said New Zealand’s citation is “for trying to portray their current tobacco control plan as a success when in reality, since COP10, they’ve reversed world-leading reforms, sabotaged Indigenous tobacco-free aspirations, have alarming vaping rates among young people, and have plummeted from 2nd to 53rd on the global index for tobacco industry interference.
New Zealand’s legislative reversal is being used by tobacco industry interests globally to push bad policy.”
New Zealand has a 6.8% smoking rate (the fifth-lowest in the world), with a pack of cigarettes costing just under NZ$50 ($28), plain packaging requirements, and a strict smoking policy that pretty much bans smoking in all public places. Conversely, Mexico’s smoking rate is 15.4% and the average cost for a pack of cigarettes is $0.70, and yet it was awarded the “Orchid Award” by GATC for “powerful and uncompromising statements against the tobacco industry.”
The seemingly nonsensical awards drew sharp criticism.
“The (Bloomberg-funded) Global Alliance for Tobacco Control has given the Dirty Ashtray award to New Zealand for having one of the world’s lowest smoking rates but doing it in a way that Bloomberg disapproves,” Institute of Economic Affairs head Chris Snowden wrote on his X account. The global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, for which New Zealand was criticized for having dropped on, is financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies.
“Prohibitionist campaigners are annoyed that New Zealand has embraced harm reduction, pointing to ‘alarming vaping rates among young people,’” Alastair Cohen wrote for Clearing the Air. “Youth vaping rates have fallen for three successive years in New Zealand. Mexico was awarded at COP11. Mexico’s smoking rates are more than double those of New Zealand.”
The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) was also quick to condemn the awards. “Awarding the Dirty Ashtray to a country that is reducing smoking through harm reduction is not public health advocacy,” said CAPHRA Executive Coordinator Nancy Loucas. “It is ideological obstruction.”
“Prohibition-driven NGOs have placed ideology ahead of public health outcomes,” CAPHRA said in a statement. “The FCTC Secretariat has permitted well-funded NGOs to dominate proceedings, pressure delegations, and exclude voices with lived experience, many of whom were denied access to COP11.
“This decision reflects how the COP process has been driven by prohibitionist ideology rather than evidence and demonstrated public health success. These results are driven by harm reduction and regulated vaping, yet GATC dismisses the progress as ‘tobacco industry interference,’ ignoring the substantial health gains achieved.”
