Tag: New Zealand

  • New rules needed

    New rules needed

    The decision by New Zealand’s Ministry of Health to take action against Philip Morris New Zealand (PMNZ) over the sale of its smoke-free heated tobacco product demonstrated the urgent need for comprehensive reform so that smokers could switch from cigarettes to smoke-free alternatives including heated tobacco products, according to a PM press release published by scoop.co.nz.

    The Ministry of Health has filed a complaint in the Wellington District Court against PMNZ over the importation and sale of the company’s Heets tobacco sticks, which are the consumable part of its IQOS heat-not-burn product, according to a stuff.co.nz story relayed by the TMA. The ministry considers Heets to comprise tobacco products designed for oral use other than for smoking, which are prohibited under the Smoke-Free Environments Act 1990. A hearing in the case has been set for June 2.

    The general manager of PMNZ Jason Erickson said the company had firmly believed it would be helping to advance the government’s goal of securing a smoke free New Zealand when it introduced its smoke-free product IQOS to New Zealand last year.

    PMNZ launched the IQOS device and Heets tobacco sticks in New Zealand in December 2016 as part of the company’s stated global commitment to replacing conventional cigarettes with smoke-free alternatives.

    Erickson said the company was confident that the sale of IQOS and Heets fully complied with the Smoke-Free Environments Act (1990) and other relevant legislation in New Zealand.

    “The section of the law referenced by the ministry in its action against Philip Morris was originally put in place in the 1990s to address American-style chewing tobacco,” Erickson said.

    “We stand behind IQOS and Heets. But it’s clear that old 20th century laws are not sufficient to address new 21st century technologies that New Zealand smokers are embracing as they move away from combustible cigarettes.”

    The New Zealand Government announced in March that it would legalise the sale and supply of nicotine electronic cigarettes and e-liquid, and establish a pathway to enable emerging tobacco and nicotine-delivery products to be sold lawfully as consumer products.

    “We support New Zealand’s Smoke-free 2025 goal,” Erickson said. “Philip Morris looks forward to working with government to ensure IQOS and Heets are fully understood in the context of the regulations being developed for e-cigarettes and emerging tobacco and nicotine-delivery products.”

    The PM press note said that IQOS was available in in more than 20 countries, including the UK, Japan, Italy and Switzerland. Globally, more than two million smokers had switched to IQOS and the company had plans to expand to key cities in 30 countries by the end of 2017.

  • Call for e-cigs subsidy

    subsidy photo
    Photo by jonnwilliams

    The Maori public health organization Hapai Te Hauora believes subsidising electronic cigarettes is a way to help many Maori break their addiction to tobacco, according to a story in the Waatea News.

    Tobacco control advocacy service manager Zoe Hawke said she was seeing many Maori who were interested in vaping but couldn’t afford the high entry price.

    She hopes a Ministry of Health review of electronic cigarettes and vaping will lead to the lifting of restrictions on nicotine-containing liquids, which at present must be bought from overseas via the internet because it can’t be sold in New Zealand.

    But that will still leave consumers with a big up-front cost.

    “We just need to support people to get the initial tools, to get the e-cigs, and then they will save money, especially when you look at the taxes on tobacco,” said Hawke.

    Patches and gum were already subsidised, so it was no great leap to subsidise electronic cigarettes as part of cessation programs, she added.

  • Tobacco taxes, robberies up

    robbery photo
    Photo by Arenamontanus

    Police in New Zealand need to record the number of robberies in which tobacco is taken, according to a story by Nicholas Jones for the New Zealand Herald quoting the Act Party leader David Seymour.

    The call by Seymour came after a weekend robbery at a dairy in Christchurch that has been robbed eight times in seven months. Cash and cigarettes were taken during the latest robbery.

    In October, police said the black market for tobacco was fuelling dairy robberies.

    Seymour told the Herald he had recently requested from police information on the number of tobacco-related burglaries.

    But the request could not be met because crime statistics do not record whether tobacco products are taken in burglaries or robberies.

    “Tobacco taxes have more than doubled in the past five years and there are, sometimes violent, robberies of the now $300 bricks of cigarettes happening every other day,” Seymour said.

    “It is extraordinary that the police are not recording whether tobacco was a factor in a robbery.”

    The Government last year passed legislation to hike the price of cigarettes to about $30 a pack by 2020, despite being condemned by New Zealand First and Act.

    And the tax on tobacco will rise by 10 percent on January 1 each year for the next three years. Those rises are expected to bring in an extra $425 million in tax over that period.

    Seymour said the government’s policy of taxing tobacco hard had made dairies and service stations into targets for theft, but it had not significantly reduced smoking rates.

  • E-cigs represent a ‘win’

    win photo
    Photo by Risager

    A New Zealand doctor believes that shifting smokers onto electronic cigarettes represents a “win”, according to a story on TVNZ.

    The doctor said that electronic cigarettes were going to be “absolutely fantastic”.

    The report described electronic cigarettes as a product that was becoming increasingly popular among smokers.

    But it claimed that new research had suggested that while vaping these products might be better than smoking traditional cigarettes, they came with their own set of problems.

    But on TVNZ’s Breakfast program, Doctor John Cameron was upbeat.

    “If we can get everyone who’s smoking tobacco related products and put them onto e-cigarettes, I think we have got a win,” he said.

    It was known that the best thing to put in your lungs was fresh air, no question about it, he added.

    And the worst thing you could put into your lungs was the smoke from burnt tobacco leaves.

    Vaping sat somewhere in the middle.

    There was nothing wrong with nicotine as a drug, it was the delivery system that mattered.

    Talking about the down-sides of electronic cigarettes, Cameron said there was a risk people might turn to vaping who had never picked up a cigarette and smoked before.

    “You are developing a behaviour which is inhaling a substance that may or may not do some damage to your lungs, it’s probably minuscule but are we going to say it is a good thing to do? So that is where the conundrum currently lies.”

  • Big tax increase in NZ

    Big tax increase in NZ

    Tobacco excise was increased by 10 percent in New Zealand from the beginning of this year, according to a Radio New Zealand story.

    This year’s increase was the first of four consecutive 10 percent rises that are due to come into force on January 1 each year until 2020.

    The retail price of a pack of cigarettes is currently about $20.

    Roughly 15 percent of adult New Zealanders, or 550,000 people, are estimated to smoke daily, while smoking-related illnesses are said to kill up to 5,000 a year.

    Quitline chief executive Andrew Slater said it was likely more people would stop smoking because of the price rise.

    And Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox said the goal was that by 2025 fewer than five percent of people would be smokers.

    There were many parts of New Zealand that had already reached that goal.

    However, one of the biggest areas that needed to be examined was Māori smoking – Māori women smoking.

    And another was the trial introduction of electronic cigarettes and vaping as forms of cessation.

    Fox said a change to the tobacco laws was being considered, formally to include electronic cigarettes as part of quit-smoking moves.

  • Lawyer calls smoking ban “torture”

    A lawyer who described a smoking ban at health facilities in West Auckland and North Shore, in New Zealand, as cruel and torturous has told a court hospitals need dedicated smoking rooms, according to a story on Radio New Zealand.

    Smoking has been banned on all Waitemata District Health Board sites since 2009.

    Two former psychiatric patients and a retired nurse are challenging the ban in the DHB’s mental health units.

    Their lawyer, Richard Francois, told the High Court in Auckland on Monday that some psychiatric patients are refusing care because they can’t smoke—which he says shows that the ban is cruel and nothing short of torture.