[Intl-tobacco] NZ: Ash turns heat on Govt's financing for 5-year tobacco-control plan

[robert weissman]

Ash turns heat on Govt's financing for 5-year tobacco-control plan
The New Zealand
Herald
October 29, 2004

By NICOLA BOYES

A Ministry of Health five-year plan for tobacco control lacks the
financial backing
to be effective, says anti-smoking group Ash.

The plan, released on Wednesday, outlines five objectives the Government
hopes to
undertake to reduce the smoking rate from 25 per cent to 20 per cent of the
population by 2009.

But Ash director Becky Freeman says the plan contains much of the same old
approaches to reducing smoking, like campaign advertising, with no
additional
funding to implement it.

"It's well and fine to release a plan but are they attaching funding to
it? If
there's no money along with it we're not able to do much."

She said the Government spent about $30 million a year on tobacco
control but the
American Centre for Disease Control best-practice guidelines on tobacco
control
indicated at least $70 million was needed.

The plan comes as restaurants, bars and workplaces prepare to go
smokefree on
December 10 with the introduction of the Smokefree Environments
Amendment Bill.

Ms Freeman said the smoking rate in New Zealand had been about 25 per
cent for
several years, indicating it was time for new measures.

She hoped discretionary measures outlined in the plan, including putting
graphic
health-related pictures on cigarette packets, doing away with cigarette
vending
machines and increasing taxes would be given the go ahead.

The ministry's Chief Adviser Public Health, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said
no additional
funding had specifically been put aside for the five-year plan but the
Government
was spending $30 million a year on the cause.

The plan aims to reduce smoking, reduce the inequalities in health
outcomes from
smoking, reduce the level of smoking among Maori from 49 per cent to 40
per cent and
reduce the population's exposure to second-hand smoke.

It identifies smoking as a major health issue for Maori and Pacific
Island people
and those from lower socioeconomic groups.

Initiatives to combat tobacco intake included taxation, requiring all
workplaces to
be smokefree, mass media campaigns and minimising price barriers to
giving up
smoking.

Dr Bloomfield said the Government was now reviewing the Smokefree
Environments Act
1999, including possible changes to health warnings on cigarette packets.

Submissions closed on October 8 and the ministry was expected to report
back to
Government before the end of the year.