OPINION: Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 is just not attainable

There are moves to make New Zealand smokefree by 2025. But is that possible?

OPINION

The presentation and my article this week on smokefree legislation got me thinking.

Now, just to get this out of the way, I hate smoking. With a passion. There are several reasons and at the risk of over-explaining I will say that both my parents smoked. As did both sets of grandparents.

Now I have to watch my mother struggle with various health issues, some of which may or may not have been directly caused by smoking. I’m not a scientist and I haven’t read any studies on it, so I’m not going to comment on that.

For me personally, even the mere sight of smoking causes me to feel nauseated. It just never attracted me.

However, I also understand that smoking is an addiction and I can sympathise. Heck, if the Government suddenly decided to come up with legislation limiting junk food, well, I would be in real trouble.

For the Government to bring in legislation with the aim of New Zealand being smokefree by 2025, I think it’s asking a lot. I get the reasons why, and while I agree with those reasons, I still feel that the goal is just not attainable. Come to that, what do they really mean by smokefree? Does that mean no smoking or vaping anywhere and no one is able to buy the products?

Having done quite a bit of university study around the media, I’ve seen a lot of advertising from an era when smoking was seen as the “in thing” to do. There were even advertisements where doctors claimed that smoking was good for health.

Of course, we’re paying the price for that now. But the point is, they didn’t know or didn’t have the information back then, and fads come and go. So now smoking is considered anti-social.

Having said that, why should we make pariahs of people who are smoking or vaping? Come to that, why is there no support for people who have never smoked and are just vaping? If the Government wants to place such limits that it makes it harder for even those who have never smoked but chose to vape, then they need to provide that support.

There is also the issue of tourists coming in to New Zealand. There are still some countries which don’t have such legislation and some even still allow smoking indoors. So how is the Government going to deal with that? Turn the tourists away if they refuse to follow the rules? Confiscate the products?

Food for thought.