Editorial: Smoking bylaw not the answer

Liz Wylie

WORLD Smokefree Day is a worthy celebration and as a country we can rejoice that 700,000 New Zealanders have given up smoking during the past decade.

I am happy to say that I am one of them, but if I should become one of those righteous reformers who give smokers a hard time, feel free to shove a cigarette up my nose.

Yes, it is lamentable that Whanganui sits high on the national scale of tobacco consumption, but I do not believe a new council bylaw will solve the problem.

At a council meeting last week, Mayor Hamish McDouall described a 2010 bylaw on smoking in public places as "toothless" and said the council had no ability to enforce it.

Of course they don't, and why should they?

Smoking in crowded public places is inconsiderate and can affect the health of others, but it is hardly criminal behaviour, and most smokers are courteous enough not to do it.

Of the 17 per cent of New Zealanders who smoke, I have no doubt most are well aware of the risks they are taking and want to quit.

When you have known the habit, cigarettes are the go-to fix in times of trouble, no matter how much they cost.

It was the first thing I reached for after experiencing a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Christchurch in 2011, even though I had given up five years earlier.

It has been very difficult for me to quit again, so I can only imagine the distress of a person experiencing a mental health crisis being banished from hospital grounds to have a smoke.

Providing support for someone to quit smoking is always laudable, but denying a cigarette to someone in crisis is cruel, not to mention dangerous.

I am glad our smoking rates have decreased and I'm pleased to be able to donate some of my personal tobacco savings to a couple of worthy charities.

What I would like to see now is a government that will impose an alcohol levy as severe as the tobacco tax and use the revenue to fix our broken mental health system.