The Government has committed to a goal of making New Zealand a smoke-free country by 2025 as part of its get-tough-on-tobacco plan. But is it achievable? Carly Gibbs reports.
On a concrete step with a newspaper under her, Pollyanna Hiku is enjoying the sweet taste of John Players tobacco.
As she talks, a thick, white smoke swirls over her lips, past her nose and then dissipates into the autumn air.
Clad in a woollen jersey and black trackpants, she allows her bare feet to touch the ground - still wet from a morning downpour.
Outside Hiku's unit in Merivale is where she always comes to puff on her cigarettes. Nearby, workmen in orange overalls are drilling. The odd car circles by. An older man steps out from his house to check his mailbox. Hiku comes to this spot up to 30 times a day to get her nicotine fix.
She's been smoking for 51 years and isn't about to give up any time soon.
The mother of eight, who turns 70 this year, is scornful of the Government's plan to turn the country smoke-free by 2025.
In a response to a Maori affairs select committee inquiry into the tobacco industry and Maori smoking rates, the Government has agreed to develop targets for reducing smoking rates with the goal of becoming a smokefree nation.
It will also consider law changes around the promotion, packaging, availability and display of tobacco products and investigate reducing nicotine levels and the use of additives.
Hiku smokes 60 grams of tobacco a week - that's $53 a week.
A lot of people smoke in Merivale and the local dairy benefits.
"Tobacco is a drawcard," Hiku reckons. "While they're in there they think 'oh shucks, what can I get?'. The tobacco is an automatic drawcard for people to go and buy. There are a lot of smokers in Merivale."
"I'm a chain smoker now," she says matter of factly.
"I lost my husband a year ago and I seem to be smoking more now."
As if on cue, she reaches for her tobacco and starts to roll. She does so with just one hand. She lost the other in a workplace accident - catching it on metal rollers while laying carpet at age 30. After eight operations to save it, she told specialists enough was enough.
"I just said 'no more, finish, take it off here'. I still bake bread, still cook ... wash the dishes," she says of where there is now a stump.
Nothing deters Hiku, least of all the Government telling her what to do.
She believes its focus should be on alcohol and drugs because it incites violence and bad choices, which in turn affects innocent people.
"I'm a habitual tobacco smoker," she says, "but as far as I'm concerned I'm not affecting anyone else ... I smoke outside or in my bedroom."
Fighting a losing battle
Hiku's nephew, who only wants to be known as Jet, lives with his aunt and also smokes.
The 49-year-old believes "social ineptness" in society today is meaning more and more people are falling back on addictions.
He likewise doesn't believe the Government will achieve its desired goal.
"It's just like trying to make New Zealand drug-free. They're fighting a losing battle there, so how the hell are they going to fight the battle against cigarettes? I really don't know. It'll end up being a being a black market thing."
Jet has no intention of giving up despite his mother, Hiku's sister, dying of throat cancer.
Hiku, who began smoking at 17, says nothing will deter her either. She claims she keeps good health except for asthma but "I've had that all my life".
Smoking is almost a family tradition for Hiku. All her eight children smoke. Some of her grandchildren smoke. Her husband Tom smoked for about 40 years before he gave up at age 58 when he got diabetes. He died at 71.
Hiku takes another drag and the smoke curls around her face.
"I would become dishonest enough to buy off anybody who brings tobacco into the country," she confides.
That's how much she needs her smokes?
"Yes."
"I have smoked this long, why should I have to give it up now? I gave up it up for about six months when I got sick about 30 years ago. After three months my children were saying: 'Mum can you start smoking again? Cause you're nasty.' I found I was quite nasty," she says with a chugging laugh that brings up a cough.
Smokers bring in the money
Backing this up is is Joan and Bill Kennedy, who own Pleasant Valley Takeaways in Merivale.
Last year their store at No1 Merivale Rd stopped stocking cigarettes for six months and the decision cost their business dearly.
Out the back of the shop, Bill is sitting down, legs crossed, having a cuppa before the evening dinner rush. Joan, wearing an apron over her red Tauranga Citizen's Club T-shirt, is watching the security monitor while we talk.
She says almost every person who walks through the door buys a packet of smokes.
"Some buy the 40 to 50 gram but most buy the $12 [packet of tailor cigarettes] because they're the cheapest," she says.
And customers balked at getting rid of them?
"Did they ever," she says. "With Merivale it's cigarettes, milk, bread, lollies and fish and chips. If you haven't got that, you haven't got a business.
"What we noticed was when we stopped selling cigarettes. we lost a lot of our regulars."
The tidy dairy experiences a flurry of visitors when the
Bay of Plenty Times Weekend
drops by. Mostly they are school children who pop their heads up and down and sideways to examine the colourful and squishy compartments in the wide-ranging lolly cabinet on the counter.
With so many people smoking, Joan - who is a non-smoker - believes the Government will not achieve their goal of a smoke-free New Zealand.
"No, definitely not," she says emphatically. "I can't see how you're going to stop them from smoking. The additives in [cigarettes] now makes it harder to give up. I can't see how they can take them away."
Particularly passionate
One smoker, who asked not to be named, questioned whether Kiwis really did live in a democratic society.
The Papamoa woman has been smoking for more years than "I care to remember, really" and like Hiku and Jet, sees smoking as personal choice.
"Whilst I can understand the recently introduced laws about smoking in public places, it is still my right to smoke in my own backyard or in my home," she says.
"I can also understand the Government's concern at the cost to taxpayers to treat people who suffer from the effects of smoking, so the smoker should not expect free medical health to cover this.
"However," the 63-year-old woman continues: "This government initiative could just be the start of denying individuals of their personal rights. Do we live in a democratic society, or will we be controlled by a dictatorship?"
It seems smokers are particularly passionate about keeping their habit.
But they will have some big voices to fight, if they are to win this battle.
Dr Tony Farrell is a local GP with a special interest in addiction medicine and helping people who suffer harm from drugs.
He absolutely supports the move to decommercialise tobacco.
"It will reduce the supply of a harmful drug in our country. There is now excellent treatment for those addicted to tobacco so we can support them to stop," he says.
Struggle with cravings
But just how easy is it to give up?
One ex-smoker in Tauranga who gave up three years ago is still having cravings.
Tauranga City councillor Murray Guy gave up smoking Port Royal tobacco three years ago, after 40 years of smoking 40 cigarettes a day.
Guy still struggles with cravings and says addicts only give up when they want to.
The 57-year-old gave up his "heavy addiction" for his family, and the fact he was concerned about how it was impacting the public's perception of him as a councillor.
He had his last cigarette on his way to a council meeting three years ago and hasn't touched them since.
"I timed it so I knew I would be in a council meeting, so at the very least I would quit smoking for an hour."
He did better than that though and kicked the habit, the bad breath and "general smell" that went with it.
Does he regret smoking?
"Oh hell yes. Of course you do.
"Something as significant as smoking, which is an addiction, of course you must regret that.
"I have no way of measuring the potential impact on those around me."
Guy is proud of his achievement but is honest when he says he hasn't noticed a huge impact on his body - yet.
Guy says he sees value in what the Government is trying to achieve and hopes Tauranga City Council will take on the initiative in "a meaningful way".
However, he can't help thinking the Government is motivated more by appearances, than a genuine desire to add value to people's lives.
"I do not believe the answer is solely regulation and solely around price. If we keep putting the price up, like with fuel, things we consider necessary in our lives we end up prioritising," he says.
Easier to give up sex than cigarettes
In 2002, a survey found most smokers in Europe would find it easier to give up sex for a month than cigarettes and many view even bungy jumping or parachuting as less difficult than kicking the habit.
Trying to help those give up smoking is a man called Joseph "Hohepa" Maxwell of Nga Kakano Foundation. Maxwell manages the smoking cessation programme run by the Ministry of Health.
He agrees smokers only give up when they want to.
New Zealand is behind other countries when it comes to smoking laws and increased education around smoking is positive, Maxwell believes.
In the Australian state of Victoria it is illegal to smoke with a child in the car.
Australian health minister Nicola Roxon has also drafted legislation requiring tobacco companies to print their brand name in a specific font. If the legislation is passed, cigarette packs would also be an ugly olive green because research showed this was the least attractive colour for smokers.
Ex-smoker and smoking cessation adviser for Nga Kakano Foundation Laura Tongalea-Nolan has noticed social stigma is beginning to have an impact.
"I've noticed people don't like to be seen smoking, it's becoming socially unacceptable.
"People are either going to have to get used to it or change with everyone else because change is coming," she says.
Interestingly, the
Bay of Plenty Times Weekend
struggled significantly to find smokers willing to be identified and quoted for this article.
Walk around town on any given day and there appears to be a lot of smokers in our community: office workers, tradesmen, mothers, teenagers. But there is no doubt it's getting harder to smoke.
The biggest users
Tauranga Hospital's tobacco control project manager Stewart Ngatai says raising tobacco tax is already having an impact on smoking's most vulnerable - those in lower soci-economic groups.
New research from The Quit Group shows that even though it has been a year since the introduction of the three-staged tobacco tax increases, more people are continuing to give up the habit then ever before.
Ngatai, who himself is a non-smoker, believes the Government is realistic in getting Kiwis to ditch cigarettes by 2025, so long as resources are put in place.
Ngatai says Maori are the country's biggest smokers, with almost one in two addicted to cigarettes. Maori women are the biggest users.
In the Western Bay, 18 per cent of the total population smoke. This compares with 37 per cent in the Eastern Bay, where the population of Maori is higher.
Ngatai says there's a "stigmatisation" around smoking now and it has almost become "abnormal" in general situations to light up.
"When I was growing up it was still a cool thing to do. Now there's been a big shift in that mindset."
What teenagers think
This is backed up by today's generation, with kids at Mount Maunganui College balking at the idea of lighting up.
Students say smoking is still happening at school but mostly among the juniors.
Seniors realised the health implications and did not consider smoking "cool".
"I think it's really gross. I've just heard lots of stories how it damages your body," 15-year-old Jenanne Webber says.
"I saw a 10-year-old smoking at a bus stop."
Her comment draws a low, collective gasp from her peers.
Of six Mount Maunganui teenagers interviewed, three had never tried a cigarette.
Caleb Mattison-Smith and Zoe Hole, both 17, have tried smoking twice but don't rate it.
Abbey McCorry, 16, has tried smoking "a bit more than twice" but says she won't take it up because it was too expensive.
Caleb's dad smokes as does Abbey's and it is "kinda off-putting," says Caleb. Abbey agrees.
"They kinda come back and it just stinks the house."
No bylaws in Tauranga City
Seven years after smoking in bars was snuffed out, business for Bay bar owners continues to burn bright. Tauranga's Nancy Hogg, owner of Bravo Cafe and Restaurant, Encore Cafe and Greers Gastro Bar and vice-president of the Bay of Plenty branch of the Restaurant Association of New Zealand, says the change has been absorbed.
While there was "a little bit" of disruption into people's lives to start with, it has overall made a "huge" difference for staff and patrons who don't smoke.
Apart from bars and restaurants, there are no bylaws in Tauranga City preventing smoking in public areas.
In terms of private, most recently, Baypark stadium became smokefree.
In future, speedway fans who smoke will have to miss one of the speedway races in order to have a cigarette.
With more and more incentives to curb smoking, the Government could just stand a fighting chance for change.
They have already introduced legislation to ban retail displays and to permit instant fines for selling tobacco to minors.
Smoking restrictions are being introduced at many parks and playgrounds, and millions are being spent on smoking education and quit programmes.
It's a "watch this space" incentive.
But in the meantime, smokers like Hiku will continue to roll up, smoke up and fight for nicotine.
"I do enjoy my smoking. If I wanted to stop smoking tomorrow, I know I can't," Hiku says.
Does she believe smoking will claim her life one day?
"Oh, hey. I could walk across the road tomorrow ... ," she hollers.
"I've been a habitual smoker for 51 years. It's different with these young kids who are just learning to smoke but the habitual smokers? I'm not the only one.
"If the choices you make are wrong then you've got to pay for it, not anybody else."
They were keynote speakers at this year's Business Women’s Network Speaker Series.