Submission
to Inquiry: End Smoking NZ asks for tobacco multinationals to report sales
by District Health Board View submission End Smoking NZ has asked the Maori
Affairs Select Committee Inquiry into the Tobacco Industry to hold major
tobacco transnational firms to account, by requiring them to total tobacco sales
(98% of sales) in each product category annually by District Health
Board area, and by the Territorial Local Authorities which
comprise the DHBs. DHBs have to treat the dying smokers, the
diseases and disabilities caused by people smoking tobacco companies’
products. __________________________________________________________________________ Comment:
Ministry of Health continues to blacklist nicotine e-cigarettes http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/regulatory/MedicalDevices/ElectronicCigarettes.asp
In a further
clarification of previous advice, Medsafe, states “Electronic
cigarettes are medicines when supplied with one or more cartridges
containing nicotine, even if they are not represented as aids to smoking
cessation.” This maintains Medsafe’s
previous opposition to the sale of nicotine e-cigarettes, virtually banning
them. This means that whatever the
retailer’s claims made or not made, whatever
the user’s intentions, nicotine is a medicine and can’t be sold
(and Medsafe is not offering to license any
e-cigarettes as medicines). Ministry of Health and Medsafe annually supply smokers wanting to quit with
$8.5 million dollars worth of subsidized nicotine patches, gum, vapourisers, lozenges. But
e-cigarettes are blacklisted. However all e-cigarette users want is for
e-cigarettes to be cheaper than tobacco. Disposable e-cigarettes cost under
20 dollars and give 150 puffs and there is no need to want to quit before
enjoying them.. Ministry of Health wants doctors to
help smokers make more attempts to quit smoking, and to record whether
their patients smoke. Flip chart tests however show that some smokers are
very interested in the option of e-cigarettes. Medsafe believes the Medicines Act would
allow it to prosecute any firm importing and selling nicotine e-cigarettes
not licensed as a medicine, even if imported as a tobacco product under the
Smokefree Environments Act (See our Nicotine
sold in lethal cigarettes or cigars or tobacco for smoking can be sold, but
nicotine in an e-cigarette imported as an alternative tobacco product
cannot be sold. (except as a medicine, and no
e-cigarette is licensed). Those with internet savvy can import
e-cigarettes for personal use. Meantime most smokers just keep on smoking. The current ban on nicotine e-cigarettes prohibits
the sale of a substantially safer e-cig alternatives to cigarettes.
E-cigarette emissions are 100 times less toxic than tobacco cigarette smoke
emissions. Smokers don’t choose to take nicotine
as a medicine, but many would like to be able to buy and enjoy their
nicotine in e-cigarettes which are obviously much safer. In Something is seriously wrong
here. _________________________________________________________________________
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Bars, restaurants and workplaces are smokefree, but can smoking really be stubbed out forever? Photo: iStock Anti-smoking groups are pushing for a ban on cigarette sales – but critics say it would just lead to a huge tobacco black market. Anthony Hubbard reports. IT'S THE nuclear option in the war against Big Tobacco: a ban on
sales. Smoking is "slaughtering" the population, says
anti-smoking campaigner Murray Laugesen. Since
1950, it has killed more than 150,000 people, greater than the population
of |
Years of anti-smoking legislation have only slightly dented the rate of smoking. The anti-smoking group Ash points out that in 1991 about 26% of adults smoked. By 2007 this was down only a few points, to 23%. "This is an unacceptable rate of decline and highlights the need for urgent action," Ash says.
The Smokefree Coalition, a collection of more than 40 anti-smoking groups, is now pushing for a ban on sales of cigarettes and tobacco by 2020. The push for a ban is the main thrust of the battle against Big Tobacco, both here and abroad. More than 90% of the submissions to the Maori Affairs select committee, which is investigating smoking's effect on Maori, have backed the idea.
Opponents, including the tobacco companies themselves, say it will lead to a huge black market, perhaps dominated by criminal gangs. Didn't Prohibition lead to massive bootlegging and murder? After all, even the cigarette companies now admit that smokers are addicts. If you stop them buying their daily fix, won't they turn to other sources?
Laugesen, a leader of the anti-smoking movement for 25 years, both as a government official and then as a researcher and lobbyist, says the plan is quite different from Prohibition. Growers would not be able to buy tobacco after 2020, but they could still grow it for their own use. There would be a gradual phase-out of sales, not an overnight ban. And there would have to be much more help for smokers wanting to quit.
"We're not out to end smoking altogether. I think that's a bridge too far," says Laugesen. "But taking it out of shops will have the effect of drastically reducing smoking.
"It would be very difficult for any well-organised criminal black market to kill more than 4500 people a year [the current death toll from smoking]. That is the problem we have, we have a legalised trade whose products are slaughtering the population."
Price increases usually lead to falls in smoking, and, under the plan,
the price would be steadily increased until 2020. The government's recent
tax increases – which will raise prices by 30% by 2012 – are a
good start, says Laugesen. More increases would
be needed after that.
At the same time, much more help must be given to smokers to quit. Laugesen points to electronic cigarettes, metallic cigarette-shaped vaporisers which give smokers their nicotine hit without the lethal smoke. At present, these are not readily available because the nicotine cartridge they require cannot be sold here, although smokers can import them for personal use.
By 2020, under the Smokefree scheme, the number of smokers would already be falling. But this suggests the remaining ones will be the hard-core addicts, the ones most likely to drive a black market. They could turn to locally grown tobacco, known as "chop-chop" – under the present law, you can grow up to 15kg a year for personal use, enough to make about 60 roll-your-owns a day.
"All the reports we've had are that chop-chop apparently tastes like absolute s--t," says Ash communication manager Michael Colhoun. This doesn't necessarily mean that smokers won't buy it. Desperate addicts will take what they can get. The evidence suggests that tobacco is quite easy to grow, Laugesen says. City-dwellers could grow it in a glasshouse.
Smokers could also use smuggled cigarettes from abroad. Laugesen believes the scope for a black market in this
area is limited. The total
"The quantities are substantial and cannot easily be hidden and
cannot easily be rustled up from here and there," says Laugesen. "For example, a cigarette factory in
"Any finished product would have to come from overseas, and, to come in in any quantity, it would have to come in in a shipping container." Could the smugglers really bring in a shipping container every day?
The tobacco companies say there is already a black market and it grows whenever the price of cigarettes is boosted.
Only one country in the world,
In fact, the ban was not lifted: a bill in the National Council, the
upper house of parliament, did not proceed. However, a report by American
political scientist Michael Givel in November
last year "tentatively" concluded that "tobacco consumption
and secondhand smoke exposure remain a significant health issue in
Givel's report shows that officials were
worried about the "porous" border between
The experience of a third-world land-locked country clearly cannot be
transferred, holus-bolus, to
British and American Tobacco, the largest cigarette company in
This represented, the report claimed, a loss of $39 million to $50m in tax to the government each year. However, the report clearly involves a whole series of assumptions about not only the quantity of tobacco grown in New Zealand, but also about how much is being brought in illegally.
Ash, which is preparing its own report on the black market, disputes Ernst and Young's findings.
Nobody doubts that a ban on sales would lead to an increase in the tobacco black market. And nobody really knows how big it would be. END
(For public support see www.endsmoking.org.nz/polls.htm )
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Four simple policies
Four simple
policies to end cigarette sales in NZ
by 2020
Four policies to end
the sale of cigarettes and smoking tobacco in
4 May
2010
95%
of users say e-cigarette helped them quit smoking
23% were still smoking
daily - median 12 cigarettes per day. On the other hand, 63% were no longer
smokers. Median duration of use was 100 days, median 175 puffs per day. Etter JF et al. Electronic cigarettes: a survey of users. http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/1440477701319135_article.pdf?random=19859
Tobacco
tax increases – a useful kickstart to the
growing campaign to phase out commercial sales of tobacco cigarettes by
2020.
1)
The
last big increase in 2000 was marred by relapse of 80,000 smokers over 3
months. www.endsmoking.org.nz/casestudy.htm
2)
The
“equalization” of tax on RYOs and
factory made cigarettes only applies if the RYO smoker uses the same amount
of tobacco per cigarette as a FM (factory-made) cigarette smoker. (0.7 g
per cig).
3)
However
in reality - the average weight of a RYO cigarette in NZ for the last many
years is around 0.5 g# ** - the gap between RYOs
and FM prices will be even further apart than before this tax increase.
4)
This
persisting and increased gap is now likely to persuade even more FM smokers
to shift to RYOs instead of quitting.
Table
1. Cigarette price changes in 2010-2012:* All cigarette prices increase,
but RYOs remain cheaper than factory-made cigarettes.
|
|
Mar
2010 |
April
2010 |
Jan
2012 |
2010
– 2012 |
|
25s Factory Made |
$13.00^ |
$14.30^ |
$17.30* |
+33% |
|
30g RYO |
$21.30^ |
$25.50^ |
$29.80* |
+40% |
|
Assuming 60 RYOs /30 g (0.5 g/RYO cigarette # **) |
|
|||
|
Price*/FM cig |
52.0 c |
57.6 c |
69.2 c |
+15c |
|
Price*/RYO cig |
35.5 c |
42.5 c |
49.7c |
+14c |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Avg RYO cigarette (0.5 g) cheaper by |
16.5c /cig |
15.1c /cig |
19.5c /cig |
3c more /cig |
*Ministry
of Health press release
#Laugesen, Epton, Frampton,
Glover, Lea. http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/194 and more at www.healthnz.co.nz/News2009.htm based on weighing of tobacco in
cigarettes rolled by RYO smokers.
**http://www.endsmoking.org.nz/RYOhalfprice.htm
Table 1 National data estimating RYO weights.
^
Actual recommended retail prices from BAT. In reality, shops on low income
areas discount these prices.
Table
2. Actual taxes and prices before and after
From
3 shops in Lyttelton: shop prices will not change
until about
|
|
Before
|
From
May
2010 |
%
increase during
2010 |
|
Excise rates www.customs.govt.nz |
|
|
|
|
Tax rate/FM
cigarette |
31.4 c |
34.587 c/cig |
10% (tax) |
|
Tax rate / 0.5 g RYO |
19.65 c |
24.643 c/cig |
25% (tax) |
|
Tax rate / 0.7 g RYO |
27.51 c |
34.587 c/cig |
25.7% (tax) |
|
Retail prices |
|
|
|
|
|
9.50** to 10.30 |
11.30* |
10% |
|
|
13.00 |
14.30* |
10% |
|
30g RYO |
$19.80** to $21.30 |
25.50* |
20% |
* recommended
retail price from BAT
** a
discounted price
Note:
Medical
rules lead to withdrawal of electronic quit-smoking aid
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10638910
Dunedin Online
Pharmacy has withdrawn its electronic cigarettes from sale, after the
Ministry of Health “advised” it was acting illegally. One
satisfied user emailed the Herald saying he was dismayed, “since they
work”.
However public health
specialist Dr Murray Laugesen argues the products
can be legally imported and sold - but not advertised - under the Smokefree Environments Act, although he wants the
ministry first to write regulations to ensure safety.
Smoker
wants e-ciggie nicotine at a shop near him
|
|
|
Mark Greenhalgh says
e-cigarettes have enabled him to cut his daily habit from 30 to three
tobacco cigarettes. Photo / Paul Estcourt
Full Life distributor Cecil Driver of
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10638418
Comment:
The
NZ Smokefree Environments Act permits sale of
nicotine products. (see Letter to NZ Medical
Journal below). End Smoking NZ
regards the sale of effective cigarette substitutes as key to persuading
smokers that tobacco cigarette sales in NZ can be phased out by 2020.
For clinical trials
showing e-cigarettes reduce cravings, see www.healthnz.co.nz/News2010.htm
Clean,
green and tobacco-sales-free
Four out of five Kiwi
smokers would not smoke if they had their lives over again, says researcher
Marewa Glover. Source: Stuff
End
Smoking NZ experts’ views on ending cigarette sales
Smokefree
Aotearoa? Is a smokefree nation a realistic goal?
The Ideas
programme interviews:
University of
Auckland academic Dr Marewa Glover (End Smoking NZ board member) on why
Maori are at the forefront of those calling for a ban on the sale of
tobacco; and;
Longtime anti-smoking
campaigner and researcher Dr Murray Laugesen (chair, End Smoking NZ) on
e-cigarettes and other alternatives to tobacco products;
Also Otago
Univesity public health professor Professor Richard Edwards, on what he
calls tobacco’s end game.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ideas
End
Smoking NZ’s Submission to the Maori
Affairs Select Committee
on
the Inquiry into the tobacco industry in Aotearoa
and the health
consequences
of tobacco use for Maori.
Published on MASC
website February 2010
The tobacco
smoking deaths epidemic has arisen since commercial
cigarettes
became
popular in the first half of the 20th century, and
ending this
epidemic requires that commercial cigarettes be phased
out.
Read how four key policies can end the sale of cigarettes by 2020,
by making the healthy choice the easy
and cheaper choice.
Read the full submission at …..SubmissionTobInquiry_EndSmoking_25Jan10.pdf
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NZ
Med J under the Smokefree Environments Act |
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Summary—Here we (ML and End Smoking NZ) canvass some new
thinking on tobacco and nicotine law. End Smoking NZ is a charitable
trust dedicated to end the sale of traditional tobacco-containing tobacco
products for smoking by 2020. Before this can be done, it is essential to
free up access for smokers to effective, safer nicotine products. These
products, we find, could theoretically, probably be sold now for
recreational use under the Smokefree
Environments (SFE) Act. For example, nicotine-containing electronic
cigarettes (which simulate smoking, by vaporising
nicotine into a mist without burning tobacco or creating smoke) could
provide safer alternatives to cigarette smoking. Allowing time for
regulations for safety reasons, which we support, it should be possible
to permit approved brands of nicotine electronic cigarettes by 2011. This
is better than waiting years until such brands can be approved as
medicines. Findings—Tobacco products in the SFE Act 1990, we find, are
defined broadly, as products of tobacco, made from tobacco, whether or
not they contain tobacco. Since nicotine is manufactured exclusively from
tobacco, the nicotine in nicotine ‘cigarettes’, including
nicotine electronic cigarettes, fits the SFE Act definition of tobacco
product. This means nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes, can be
sold, and sold for recreational or pleasurable purpose under the SFE Act,
without negating the powers of Medsafe to
approve and license the sale of medicinal nicotine products under the
Medicines Act 1981. Some products, perhaps with different brand names,
could eventually finish up obtaining approval under both Acts. Current situation—Smoking cessation is a Ministry of Health
priority, but the Ministry’s enhanced cessation programme
now embarked on, aided by substantial use of subsidised
medicinal nicotine, is not expected to prevent
more than a minority of smoking or cigarette-attributable deaths in the
next few decades. A raft of new policies and products are needed to
reduce cigarette smoking more rapidly. For
tobacco addicts, medicines have their limitations. Most smokers, most of
the time, do not want medicines or to see the doctor about their smoking.
Indeed, most probably regard themselves as
healthy. Even when they quit, only 30% use medicinal nicotine. Smokers
want to smoke, except for a few days per year when under
half make a serious quit attempt. It is mostly nicotine they smoke for.
An electronic cigarette emits about 100 times less toxicant than a
regular cigarette. So why not let them inhale their nicotine without the
toxic smoke? Most
drugs of pleasure, whether legal or not, attract regulation, and need a
regulatory “home”. Until now, we all assumed nicotine for
human consumption only had only one home - the Medicines Act 1981. This
has meant all nicotine must perforce be medicinal, whereas patently, it
is not. Currently, non-nicotine electronic cigarettes can be sold, but
any nicotine-containing electronic cigarette for sale must first be
approved as a medicine –an expensive process, and none is, so far.
Some are imported for personal use. In reality, 99% of nicotine is
non-medicinal, inhaled for pleasure and regulated under the SFE Act.
Inhaling vapour from a simulated cigarette for
pure nicotine pleasure, subject to safety checks, could in fact
gratuitously assist in reducing smoking mortality and morbidity, just as
methadone is used successfully to treat heroin addiction. The proposal—We propose that nicotine-containing electronic
cigarettes be on general sale by the 2011 at the latest, under the SFE
Act. This timetable allows for passage of the necessary Regulations in
2010, enabling testing and shop sales in 2011, which would: ·
Be popular with smokers; ·
Provide safer choices for smokers; ·
Provide a cheaper, safer, alternative for smokers
facing rising prices; ·
Reduce consumption of tobacco cigarettes; ·
Provide in future, a permanent alternative to
continued cigarette sales. The
Minister of Health with suitable regulation of e-cigarettes, would be
able to do what no previous Minister of Health has been able to do, that
is, promise 100-fold risk reduction for continuing “smokers”,
something impossible, even with the strictest regulation, of commercial
tobacco cigarette smoke. For
human consumption, it seems clear, we now have two Acts for nicotine,
depending on how the purchaser wants to use the product – for
recreational or medicinal purposes: The
SFE Act provides for recreational (non-medicinal) use of nicotine,
General sale of cigarettes and electronic cigarettes is permitted, but no
therapeutic claims can be made. No dose is prescribed. The
Medicines Act provides for the medicinal use of nicotine by various
routes; and allows therapeutic claims, for example, about giving up
smoking (example, nicotine patch). Some sales may be restricted to
pharmacies, as with current medicinal nicotine inhalers. Guidance on dose
and duration of treatment is given. Definition of a tobacco product—“Tobacco product
means any product manufactured from tobacco and intended for use by
smoking, inhalation, or mastication; and includes nasal and oral snuff;
but does not include any medicine (being a medicine ..... that is sold or
supplied wholly or principally for use as an aid in giving up
smoking.”1 The
definitional wording suggests that it is the intention of the seller
or supplier that determines whether it is wholly or principally for
use as an aid in giving up smoking. Thus the seller cannot make claims
that it helps smokers quit. Regulations to control for possible hazardous substances in
nicotine electronic cigarettes—The Smokefree
Environments Act at Section 31, permits Regulations
to limit or remove hazardous substances or additives of concern. Although
in the one brand studied (Ruyan), few hazardous
substances were identified, and only in small amount,2
this cannot be assumed to apply to all brands without a monitoring system.
Regulations should ensure ongoing, regular and random monitoring, and
could be financed from charges on the brands to be licensed for sale. Competing interests: None declared. The author and End Smoking NZ has no financial interest in any nicotine,
pharmaceutical or tobacco company.
References: 1.
Smoke-free Environments Act 1990, Reprint as at 2.
Laugesen M. Ruyan
e-cigarette bench top tests. Poster. Society for Research on Nicotine and
Tobacco. 15th Annual Conference |
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Dr Murray Laugesen QSO chair; Prof Ross McCormick, Sir John Scott KBE, Trish
Fraser MPH, Dr Marewa Glover, Trustees
Making it easier to quit smoking for good © 2009 End
Smoking NZ