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Editorial
Cigarettes smoking is
responsible for one in three Maori deaths and one in six of all deaths;
and since 1950, for the early deaths of over 170,000 New Zealanders. SmokeLess New
Zealand
therefore seeks to obtain
legislation to
1) Steadily
reduce the nicotine in cigarettes to make quitting easier.
2)
Ensure smokers can access safer, effective, smokeless
nicotine alternatives.
3)
End cigarette sales by 2016.
SmokeLess New Zealand
’s website www.endsmoking.org.nz is now at your service. You will find
it informative. The very idea that cigarette sales can and should be
phased out – after the right policies have made it possible, will
we hope, embolden the public to ask for a Smokefree
Environments Act strengthened to stub out cigarette sales and actually
end the most lethal epidemic of our time.
SmokeLess seeks better resourcing of current programmes,
asks for doubled expenditure to increase media pressure on smokers to
quit, and supports all that current agencies are doing.
The Maori Party
has called for an end to cigarette sales. A recent TV3 poll that the
public support such a move. www.smokeless.org.nz/polls.htm
SmokeLess offers a range of policies that can
help make stubbing out a reality for the whole of society within ten
years.
We invite you to
sign up to the support pages to be found on the right hand side of the
website menu. Your name will not be divulged outside of SmokeLess New Zealand unless you wish it so.
Murray Laugesen, chair@endsmoking.org.nz
The reader is then referred to www.endsmoking.org.nz/aims.htm
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