Mana | Movement of the People

Education key to discouraging smoking

EDITORIAL

Back in 1990, Quitline posted a calculator to give smokers an opportunity to see what they would save by not smoking.

It gave as an example someone who had a five-a-day habit not smoking for 484 days saving $1358. We used the same figures this week based on $16 for a packet of 20 and the savings over the 484-day period for that five-a-day habit came to $1936. A 20-a-day habit will cost the same person $7744 – or in round terms $5460 a year.

Putting prices up certainly puts people off smoking, and for those addicts who continue, the financial burden becomes enormous. But it has now emerged a bizarre proposition in a briefing paper to the Government suggested progressively putting up the price of a packet of 20 to $100 to discourage smokers.

That would push the cost of a 20-a-day habit to $36,500 a year.

The paper surmised: “Tobacco taxation is the single most effective intervention available to drive down smoking prevalence figures.”

That is just nonsense. The most effective intervention is to ban the sale of tobacco, but that is a proposal which has previously come from none other than Mana Party leader Hone Harawira and was therefore deemed fair game for ridicule.

Mr Harawira, of course, was right. If commercial sales of tobacco were outlawed in this country, New Zealand would become almost smoke free of the tobacco variety overnight. The social benefits after the withdrawal symptoms wore off would be enormous, even taking into account the black market which might be established.

It is, according to Mr Harawira, a completely appropriate option. It may also be something of a pipe dream. But is it certainly more sensible than charging $100 for a packet.

The smoking industry has weathered a legislation storm in recent years. It has been told to place health warnings and, more recently, gruesome pictures, on packets of cigarettes. It was denied access to sports sponsorship and sellers were told to hide cigarettes from view. The anti- smoking push has been equally tough on the customers. Smoking has been banned from most covered public areas, most notably, in recent times, bars and jails.

Now, the Government is poised to follow Australia’s lead and remove branding from cigarettes, providing the legal battle across the Tasman is not won by British American Tobacco, which argues that the plain pack order will infringe intellectual property rights.

The most-used weapon has been price, yet even the anti-smoking lobby Ash can’t agree with the suggestion that prices be pushed through the ceiling. It fears that would simply create an environment where illegal sales would flourish.

That is only one reason Minister of Health Tony Ryall can’t take that recommendation seriously. Another is that ridding the country of smoking involves more than simply hitting smokers in the pocket to the point they might try something else. Smoking rates are falling, but the rate among Maori is still 45.5 per cent. Education, not extortion, is the answer.

– Taranaki Daily News