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Last updated March
2006 Printer
friendly: www.endsmoking.org.nz/choicesbill10Mar06.pdf
Smokers’ Choices
Bill: the new deal for smokers –
The chance to continue with
nicotine, without smoking’s risks
The
Smokers’ Choices Bill will ensure smokers can quit smoking without
quitting nicotine.
In 2004, 23% of adults, nearly three quarters of a million
people, smoked. Of these one third are severely
addicted. www.endsmoking.org.nz/lowernic.htm
The Smokers Choices Bill, once enacted, will make it easier for
smokers to quit smoking, and the percentage who smoke is expected to
decline more rapidly, speeding up the annual rate of decline from 0.3
percentage points to an estimated 1.2 percentage points. (Figure 1)
Smokers’
Choices Bill:
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A bill
to strengthen the Smoke-free Environments Act to phase out the sale of
combustible tobacco products.
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Consultation and recruitment of support for the concept among
doctors and health professionals
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2006
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Target date for adoption as a private members’ bill:
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2007
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Target date for enactment
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2008
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The Smokers’ Choices Bill aims to make it easier for
smokers to quit smoking, by breaking the virtual monopoly that cigarettes
have in providing nicotine to those who addicted to nicotine for their
pleasure. Retailers will be able to offer alternative nicotine lifestyle
products to smokers. Smokers will be able, if they wish,
to give up smoking without giving up nicotine.
Figure
1. The interaction of legislation and smoking prevalence reduction
2006-2021
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From 2006 to say 2008 when the Smokers Choices Bill became
law, the expected reduction in adults smoking prevalence is 0.3% per
year.
Once the Bill makes quitting easier, a reduction of 1.2 %
points per year is expected, resulting in smoking prevalence of 10%
within 10 years, at which point the Cigarette Phase Out Bill should be
enacted, with effect say one year to five years later.
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Background
- In net terms the proportion of adults
who smoke (23%) is decreasing by 1 percent (0.3 percentage points)
annually, implying it will take about a century for smoking to
decline to under 5 percent smoking..
- Current policies tell smokers to quit
smoking, or keep smoking and die early.
- Smokers need other choices. 99% of
their nicotine and tobacco is from cigarettes, the most dangerous
tobacco product available.
- Cigarettes contain excess nicotine. www.endsmoking.org.nz/lowernic.htm
The
Smokers’ Choices Bill aims to
·
Strengthen the purpose of the Smoke-free Environments Act
to make it easier to quit smoking.
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Ensure smokers
do not need to give up nicotine to quit smoking, breaking the virtual
monopoly of smoking tobacco products in supplying nicotine to smokers.
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Improve
the product choices and the chances of those wishing to successfully quit
smoking.
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Tilt
the balance of nicotine content, and excise in favour
of non-smoking tobacco products, and make it legal to sell regulated
nonsmoking oral tobacco products.
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Tend to
speed the decline in the popularity of tobacco smoking, and thus pave the
way for the phase out of cigarette smoking once the proportion of adults
who smoke is under 10%.
The
Smokers’ Choices Bill will:
1.
Reduce
addictive burden on smokers. Reduce the (excess) nicotine content of
cigarettes and cigarette tobaccos steadily and gradually. www.endsmoking.org.nz/nrt.htm at the rate of 12.5% a year.
- Rationalise tobacco tax rates in proportion to the
death risk of the product. For example, highest tax on cigarettes,
lower tax on other smoked tobaccos, minimal tax on oral tobacco, no tax on pure nicotine products. www.endsmoking.org.nz/taxandrisk.htm
- Regulation of all tobacco products to
require compliance with toxicity standards, and nicotine also. www.endsmoking.org.nz/snuffregulations.htm
www.smokeless.org.nz/nicregs.htm
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Lift the ban on commercial oral
tobacco products in Section 29 of the Smokefree
Environments Act. www.endsmoking.org.nz/snus.htm
(possibly for a temporary
period only, say until 5 years after the phase out of cigarette
sales.)
The Smokers
Choices Bill
Proposed
revision of the purposes of the Smoke-free Environments Act
Table 1. Revisions needed to the
purposes of the Smoke-free Environments Act 1990.
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Current wording
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Proposed wording
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Purpose (a)
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To reduce the exposure of people who do not themselves smoke
to any detrimental effect on their health caused by smoking by others:
and
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No change.
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Purpose (b)
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To regulate the marketing, advertising, and promotion of
tobacco products etc
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No change.
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Purpose (b1)
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(New purpose)
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To reduce premature death
and disease due to smoking by making it easier for smokers to quit smoking
by decreasing the nicotine in cigarettes and increasing the
availability of nicotine in non-smoking products
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Purpose (c)
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To monitor and regulate the presence of harmful constituents
in tobacco products and tobacco smoke
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No change.
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Purpose (d)
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To establish a Health Sponsorship Council
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No change.
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Suggested
revisions of the text of part 2 of the Smoke-free Environments Act to
increase the availability of nicotine in non-smoking oral tobacco
products.
Section 29 Tobacco product not
to be advertised or labeled as suitable for chewing, etc.*
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Section
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Current wording
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Proposed wording
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29
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(1) No person shall publish an
advertisement for a tobacco product that directly or indirectly states
or suggests that the product is suitable for chewing or for any other
oral use (other than smoking)
(2) No person shall import for sale, sell,
pack, or distribute any tobacco product labeled or otherwise described
as suitable for chewing, or for any other oral use (other than
smoking.)
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Retain.
Delete
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Rationale for lifting the ban
on oral snuff
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Addiction
to smokeless tobacco (or to pure nicotine products) replaces addiction to
cigarettes, and thus save lives.
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The
evidence from Sweden
is that snuff assists about 4 times as many
people to avoid smoking, for every one that becomes a smoker after using
snuff. Today, Swedish males have the lowest smoking rate in the Western
world. www.endsmoking.org.nz/snus.htm
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Addiction
to smokeless tobacco would not be an economic burden on the poor, once
the tobacco tax rate is made proportional to the risk of the product.www.endsmoking.org.nz/taxandrisk.htm
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Nicotine
in the blood, whether from smokeless or smoking tobacco products, latches
on to the same nicotine receptor cells in the brain. If the dose and
speed are right, a former smoker is satisfied by nicotine from smokeless
tobacco. Once smokeless provides them with enough of the nicotine they
crave, and fast enough, cigarettes are no longer needed.
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Smokeless
tobacco is addictive, but seldom kills. (Only smoking causes lung cancer
and emphysema).
Section 31. Limits on Harmful
Constituents
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Section
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Current wording
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Proposed wording
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31.
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“No manufacturer or importer may
offer for sale or export any tobacco product or herbal smoking product
that-
(a) contains or generates in its smoke, a
harmful constituent prohibited by regulations made under this Part, or
(b) contains, or
generates in its smoke, harmful constituents in excess of the limits
prescribed by regulations made under this Part, as determined in
accordance with any tests so prescribed.”
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Retain.
Retain
Retain
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(c)
New clause needed.
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(c)
Reduction of nicotine content
i)Nicotine in smoke or the
tobacco of a smoking product is defined as a harmful constituent under
clauses (a) and (b)
(ii) Nicotine content in cigarettes,
whether manufactured or hand rolled, and the nicotine concentration of
cigarette tobacco products sold shall be reduced by 6% per year, taking
1.9% of dry tobacco weight as the start point, or 13 mg per
manufactured cigarette. This process would continue until such time as
all cigarette sales were banned.
(iii) After this date, the import of
smoking tobacco products for personal use would only be permitted if
the products were of proven low nicotine content.
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Rationale for reducing nicotine content of
cigarettes. See www.endsmoking.org.nz/lowernic.htm
For Snuff
regulations See www.endsmoking.org.nz/snuffregulations.htm
Nicotine regulations. www.endsmoking.org.nz/nicregs.htm
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