1: Expert smokefree submissions deliver answers – AVCA

“We are relying heavily on MPs to read and act on the valuable submissions to Parliament’s Health Select Committee which provide expert and practical solutions to help New Zealand achieve Smokefree Aotearoa 2025,” says Nancy Loucas co-founder of the Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA).

The submission by ASH (Action for Smokefree Aotearoa 2025) on the latest smokefree bill was co-prepared by ASH Chair Emeritus Professor Robert Beaglehole. It describes the current limits on general retailers to sell only tobacco, mint, and menthol closed vape systems as counterproductive, flawed, and harmful.

ASH proposes that an additional two or more fruit flavours be permitted for sale in general retailers, believing it would ensure former smokers, and those quitting, had access to popular flavours that help them with abstinence from smoking.

Nancy Loucas: “I’m pleased ASH has raised the flavour restrictions because they’re simply not working and are only delivering perverse outcomes. The arrival of many more ‘specialist vape stores’ literally inside or tacked onto convenience stores and manned by untrained staff is an unintended consequence of the flavour ban in general retail. It needs to be urgently addressed.”

‘I oppose the neo-prohibitionist proposals in the bill. There are compassionate and more cost-effective ways to reduce smoking prevalence. One of these is to encourage switching to a low-risk alternative… The use of e-cigarettes (vaping) has been found to be more effective than nicotine replacement therapy in enabling people to quit smoking,” writes Professor Glover.

London-based internationally renowned Tobacco Harm Reduction advocate, Clive Bates, also submitted on New Zealand’s bill to limit the availability and appeal of smoking.

Nancy Loucas: “AVCA supports the overall intent of the bill, but for New Zealand to become and stay smokefree, a viable, cost-effective, and harm reduced alternative needs to be elevated. That alternative is nicotine vaping. If MPs are serious about achieving Smokefree Aotearoa 2025, they need to take heed of the practical, evidence-based solutions now before them.”

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