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28 March 2006
New Zealand is doing extremely well in the campaign to change smoking
habits but needs to look at new ways to promote healthy tobacco
consumption, an Australian tobacco expert says.
Dr Ron Borland, who was in Christchurch for
a tobacco-control seminar yesterday, said that while smokefree
policies such as banning smoking in bars were reducing the amount of
tobacco smokers consumed, New Zealand needed to look at options such as
lifting the ban on smokeless tobacco to minimise
harm.
"New Zealand's doing very, very well. It's got very good smokefree legislation, very good support programmes for smokers wanting to quit," Borland
said. "New Zealand's probably the closest (country) to having ticked
off all the boxes on that agenda and yet still one in five adult New
Zealanders smokes."
Borland said there was growing evidence that
smokeless tobacco – tobacco consumed without burning – was
far less harmful than smoked tobacco. Smokeless tobacco is banned in New Zealand.
Borland said countries should encourage
companies to make less harmful products such as smokeless tobacco,
instead of focusing on consumers to reduce consumption.
"Most people in tobacco control have
had their eyes on the goal of decreasing tobacco use in general. Could we
change the focus of tobacco control from being the elimination of tobacco
to the elimination of smoked tobacco?" he said.
(c) The Christchurch Press
and Fairfax New Zealand Ltd 2006. All rights reserved
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3618087a7144,00.html
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