Editorial: Put cigs out of reach? It's a joke

Paul Brooks

Of all the ways to reach the non-smoking target, this latest idea takes the (fruit) cake!

A group of "experts" backed by Dame Tariana Turia has decided that if cigarettes are harder to get, people won't buy them.

Seriously?

So far we've tried putting warnings on the packet, graphic pictures of diseased organs and, currently, exorbitant taxes on tobacco and tobacco products to put people off smoking. It seems the target audience is taking no notice.

The latest idea from this group, which includes an academic, a politician and a former politician, is to reduce the number of retail outlets, so some towns will have no tobacco retailer at all.

By allowing a maximum of 300 tobacco retailers nationwide, the group hopes most smokers won't bother to travel far to buy cigarettes.

With the target of a smokefree New Zealand by 2025, this group is trying desperation measures and their reasoning is way off the mark.

They also propose a cut-off birthdate for purchasing tobacco, which would mean future generations would be breaking the law if they bought cigarettes.

By putting these measures in place against what is still a legal product, this group seeks to victimise smokers even further, ostensibly for their own good. But 2025 is a political goal and a gambit for popularity. "Look what we have done to improve the health of our electorate."

They will not reach their goal without banning tobacco worldwide.

But, in the meantime, they will destroy businesses that rely on tobacco sales, increase burglaries in centres that still have a smoke shop and force the creation of a black market in tobacco products, with unmarked vans delivering plain, cardboard boxes to provincial towns in the middle of the night.

The group's draconian measures will only turn smokers into petty criminals and seriously annoy a large number of the voting public.

By 2025 they will be looking at other measures to reach a new goal of 2050.