Murray Laugesen: Put a cap on a
lethal habit
New Zealand Herald. 5:00AM
Monday August 06, 2007, Perspectives page
On
July 19, Republican Senator Mike Enzi introduced Bill S1834 into the United
States Senate to reduce the prevalence of smoking to 2 per cent within 20
years. That would be achieved by allotting quotas to manufacturers
(called capping), depending on their market share over the past few
years, and then reducing those quotas.
In
the film Amazing Grace, we saw how abolitionist William
Wilberforce had to resort to legislation to end Britain's
addiction to slavery dollars. He would have approved of Enzi's bill,
which goes beyond the reducing quotas I recently proposed in the New
Zealand Medical Journal.
Enzi's
strategy is to allow manufacturers to trade or bank their quotas, which
are annually reduced. Cigarette prices begin to gradually increase, as
the manufacturers seek to take their profit quickly, before smokers,
finding the habit too costly, begin quitting in droves. Price spirals up;
consumption spirals down.
The
idea is that most people quit. A few may switch to nicotine or to
cigarette substitutes popular overseas, such as snuff. Anything is safer
than smoking cigarettes, and provision must be made for smokers' need for
nicotine. Nicotine can addict, but it is the smoking that kills.
Many
smokers will miss their cigarettes, while others will welcome their
improved health and increased longevity. In either case, their families
will love it.
The
Ministry of Health's I Think systems software predicts a steady,
just-under 5000 deaths annually from smoking for the next several
decades. But under cap and trade those numbers could decrease
dramatically and the strategy could be used by countries at any stage of
economic development.
Enzi
took his lead from a 1990 law in the US to
control acid rain pollution, in which cap and trade worked well, and
faster than expected. Can the health experts learn from this? Do we know
of any such examples in Australian or New
Zealand law?
What
would prevent it working in New
Zealand? Who among us has seen cap
and trade law at first hand? The method seems simple, proven, and robust.
It
is a direct way to end cigarette sales altogether, rather than seeking to
regulate the industry or its irredeemably toxic products.
Smoking
control experts should not be too proud to take inspiration out of left
field, or in this case from the political right. Enzi calls his bill the
HEALTH Bill (Helping End Addiction to Lethal Tobacco Habits).
A
combination of the Greens, Maori, and one of the two main parties could
vote something like this into law. Until they do, smoking will reduce at
the present funereal pace.
Cigarette
company Philip Morris opposes the Enzi bill, and it is unlikely to
succeed this year. The big American anti-smoking groups (Campaign for
Tobacco Free Kids, and the Lung, Heart and Cancer charities) also oppose
it.
These
four groups, with Philip Morris, support a safer Democrats bill to
regulate cigarettes under the Food and Drug Administration. But
regulating cigarettes implies continued sales.
Cigarettes,
regulated or not, kill half of continuing smokers. Not even the American
Food and Drug Administration can make them safe enough for the next
generation.
In
New Zealand,
however, with 200,000 New Zealanders killed by smoking cigarettes
already, the countdown needs to begin.
A
TV3 poll last year showed 52 per cent of adults wanted an end to
cigarette sales. The support will increase once we can explain how it can
be made to happen.
An
Enzi-style amendment to the Smokefree Environments Act could reduce
smoking to 2 per cent. Even if those 2 per cent grow their own tobacco,
the glamour will be gone.
And
if Enzi says 20 years is necessary in the US, I
believe New Zealand with
one legislature could make that 10.
Let's
get the show on the road. As the Smokefree Coalition has noted, a
roadshow around the country would be needed to explain the new goal and
the possible ways to get there. Let the countdown begin.
*
Murray Laugesen is a cigarette researcher and chairs the SmokeLess New
Zealand Trust, www.smokeless.org.nz.**
Reprinted
with permission.
**
From 2009, End Smoking NZ trust www.endsmoking.org.nz
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