By Catherine Masters and NZPA
Modern lolly cigarettes that look uncannily like the real thing are encouraging new generations of children to get hooked on smoking, says Associate Health Minister Tuariki Delamere.
Anti-smokers, from Mr Delamere down, want them banned.
The Ministry of Health is worried by the rise in the number of
fake-cigarette products available and is writing to importers to discourage them from bringing them into New Zealand.
Mr Delamere says he will try to push through an amendment to the Smokefree Environments Act to prevent the import, production and sale of candy and bubblegum cigarettes.
"Anything that imitates tobacco products, be it candy cigarettes, pipes or bubblegum, should be banned as it only encourages children to think smoking is cool - and it's not cool, it's revolting."
Trish Fraser, the director of Action Against Smoking and Health (ASH), says she has been contacted by parents and teachers unhappy that their children were able to buy the products, which other countries have banned.
Many adults will remember pretending to puff on Spaceman candy sticks on the way to school - and Trish Fraser says those are bad enough.
But new ones on the market, mainly from Germany, were worse because they looked much more realistic, from the packet to the cigarette.
"They look like packets of cigarettes, they open like cigarette packets and the cigarettes have got a filter tip on them."
Little could be done to prevent their sale, however, unless the Smokefree legislation was amended.
She hopes schools will put pressure on local dairy owners to stop stocking the candy cigarettes, and ban them from school grounds.
"You get preschoolers mimicking adults ... it's like, 'Now I'm a kid I'll have bubblegum cigarettes and when I'm older I'll go on to the real thing'."
