Smoke Review Urged

New Zealand is doing extremely well in the campaign to change smoking habits but needs to look at new ways to promote healthy tobacco consumption, an Australia tobacco expert says.

Dr Ron Borland, who was in Christchurch for a tobacco-control seminar yesterday, said that while smokefree policies such as banning smoking in bars were reducing the amount of tobacco smokers consumed, New Zealand needed to look at options such as lifting the ban on smokeless tobacco to minimise harm.

“New Zealand’s doing very, very well. It’s got very good smokefree legislation, very good support programmes for smokers wanting to quit,” Borland said. “New Zealand’s probably the closest (country) to having ticked off all the boxes on that agenda and yet still one in five adult New Zealanders smokes.”

Borland said there was growing evidence that smokeless tobacco — tobacco consumed without burning — was far less harmful than smoked tobacco. Smokeless tobacco is banned in New Zealand.

Borland said countries should encourage companies to make less harmful products such as smokeless tobacco, instead of focusing on consumers to reduce consumption.

“Most people in tobacco control have had their eyes on the goal of decreasing tobacco use in general. Could we change the focus of tobacco control from being the elimination of tobacco to the elimination of smoked tobacco?” he said.

Action on Smoking and Health director Becky Freeman said introducing smokeless tobacco addressed only the medical aspects of smoking.

French research — B2

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