Critics of the Government’s “bizarre” approach to its smokefree targets are baffled it proceeded with a tax cut for heated tobacco products based on what they say is flimsy advice from the minister in charge.
It comes as Associate Health Minister Casey Costello yesterday released documents she says relate to the “independent advice” she sought on the matter, after Treasury advice warned the tax break was inadvisable.
The documents were:
- A Decision-Theoretic Public Health Framework for Heated Tobacco and Nicotine Vaping Products – October 18, 2022
- Patterns of Smoking and Snus Use in Sweden: Implications for Public Health – November 9, 2016
- What Is Accounting for the Rapid Decline in Cigarette Sales in Japan? – May 20, 2020
- Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction A report by the Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians – April 2016
- Harnessing tobacco harm reduction, a comment piece in the Lancet journal – February 2024
Today, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon was asked why the Government was encouraging smokers to use the products when their safety was not known.
Luxon said the Government was “absolutely determined to deliver on Smokefree 2025”.
“We’re open to other alternatives that actually stops people from smoking and actually gets them into something that’s better for them.”
Health Minister Shane Reti was also asked if he had seen any evidence that heated tobacco products were safer than cigarettes.
He said he had not but it was “not my purview”.
Luxon confirmed he also had not seen evidence, but said he had “confidence in the Minister” Costello.
Philip Morris – the tobacco company which has a monopoly on heated tobacco devices in New Zealand – has claimed its products have 95% fewer harmful chemicals than cigarettes.
1News requested an interview with Philip Morris today but did not receive a response.
Tobacco control expert Chris Bullen told 1News the five documents Costello’s office provided was “a real mixed bag” that “didn’t add up to a coherent position” for the Government’s position on heated tobacco.
The Auckland University professor said according to overseas sources, heated tobacco products presented “probably less risk to human health” than cigarettes, but also contained some toxic substances in higher quantities “than in regular cigarettes”.
“The jury’s still out on whether they are actually – over years of use – would lead to similar consequences, or even new consequences for people using them compared with cigarettes.
“I don’t think we can really hand-on-heart provide advice to the public and say, ‘go ahead and use these, these are a lot safer than cigarettes’. They may be a little bit safer, but even that has to be qualified at this point in time.”
He said for vapes, evidence had “mounted over the years” that they were effective smoking cessation tools, but they had also come with “marketing machinery” which had attracted young people and people who had never smoked to them “as a sort of lifestyle product”.
Bullen said heated tobacco products and devices had the potential to lure people who had quit smoking by vaping “to think that they’re a sort of vape and as less harmful as vaping”.
“I don’t think that’s a good thing because they’re certainly not equivalent.”
He said the Government’s policy approach was “bizarre” as it had described the previous government’s strategy as an “experiment” with no evidential base.
“On the other hand, they’re now visiting another completely untested experiment on the New Zealand public and giving big tobacco industry a free ride.”
He said that went against “the whole tobacco control movement”.
Labour’s health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall said the documents did not prove relevant to whether there should be heated tobacco products getting a tax break in New Zealand.
“Most of the documents were about other things like vaping, one of them was an op-ed, one of them was written by the tobacco industry.”
She said the weight of evidence from around the world did not support the idea that heated tobacco products were significantly safer than cigarette smoking.
“In science, it’s not just good enough to have one paper; you have to have a range of papers backing up your fact.”
Verrall said she did not put any credibility in claims from an industry that had “killed tens of thousands of New Zealanders and millions of people around the world”.
