David Haywood: Ban will bring in the gangs

There is no denying Hone Harawira's good intentions when it comes to eliminating smoking-related illness. He describes himself as an "anti-smoking nutter", and has been involved in numerous campaigns to encourage people to kick their cigarette habit.

As a recently elected MP, he now intends to introduce a private member's bill which will ban all tobacco from New Zealand. Mr Harawira has been quoted as saying he can't understand why no other politician has put forward similar legislation.

Perhaps he has forgotten the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. This misguided piece of legislation came into effect in January 1920 and aimed to eliminate the social ill-effects of boozing by prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the United States.

Criminal gangs immediately took advantage of the market opportunity, and a crime wave ensued. Smuggling, police corruption, and gang-related killings became rampant.

Criminal organisations such as the Mafia developed the financial base that led to them becoming a fixture of American society. It was one of the most spectacularly failed social experiments in history.

There is no doubt that Mr Harawira's proposed legislation would produce similarly disastrous results. We have a population of nearly 700,000 tobacco addicts, ready-made for criminal gangs to exploit.

Tobacco can be legally bought in any other country at minimal cost. The risks are small, and the potential profits are huge, although not as huge, of course, as the cost of trying to fight a war against "tobacco crime".

The police would have to spend their limited resources on catching tobacco dealers. How much time would this leave them to solve other crimes?

Mr Harawira seems to think that it would all be worthwhile. As he points out, smoking kills 4500 New Zealanders every year.

This is an obscene statistic, and represents a staggering cost in human tragedy. But Mr Harawira's tobacco ban would achieve almost nothing in reducing these numbers.

A crucial difference exists between his proposed bill and successful legislation, such as the Smoke-free Environments Act.

Bars and restaurants were made smoke-free to protect other people from smokers. Mr Harawira wants to protect smokers from themselves. And, as history proves, people don't want to be protected from the things they enjoy.

It is unfortunate, but many people want to smoke, and will happily break the law to do so.

Mr Harawira dismisses such protests. He maintains his bill is no different from other legislation which prevents people from harming themselves.

New Zealanders have come to terms with wearing seat-belts and crash-helmets, he says, and will eventually adjust to the fact that smoking is illegal.

This is disingenuous. Requiring someone to wear safety equipment when engaging in a dangerous activity is quite different from prohibiting that activity.

Mr Harawira's proposed legislation is not analogous to the requirement to wear seatbelts or crash helmets. It is analogous to a total ban on cars and motorcycles and would be just as nonsensical.

Alarmingly, despite the gaping flaws in his proposed legislation, Mr Harawira seems to be gaining traction.

He has the support of various anti-smoking groups, as well as from members of his party.

He even has cross-party support from Tau Henare in the National Party - whose main motivation appears to be that it would be easier to quit his own smoking habit if tobacco was illegal for everyone else as well.

The irony of all this is that the current education and excise tax approach is working. Statistics from the Ministry of Health show that the percentage of smokers has fallen from 32 per cent of the population in 1984 to 23 per cent in 2004.

At the same time, the amount of tobacco consumed per smoker has declined by 64 per cent. Most reassuringly, the number of young smokers has fallen rapidly, with rates for Year 10 students dropping from 16 to 10 per cent over the period 1999 to 2004.

Of course, the much higher proportion of Maori smokers is a serious concern. And the overall rate of decline is much lower than ideal. Attitudes change slowly - especially when the resources invested in anti-smoking education and support are relatively small compared with the scale of the problem.

But there is cause for optimism. Dedicated Maori anti-smoking groups, such as Te Reo Marama (the Maori Smoke-free Coalition), are running aggressive advertising campaigns. Improved funding and radical approaches, like the Ministry of Health's plan to plaster cigarette packets with pictures of diseased lungs, can also be expected to pay dividends.

A significant reduction in smoking rates will only be achieved by the right balance of encouragement and deterrence.

Education and support should be used to encourage smokers to quit, and legislation and excise tax to deter consumption. The trick is not to create so much deterrence that a black market develops.

In this context, Mr Harawira's proposed bill is the deterrence measure from hell.

It will hand control of tobacco to criminal gangs, creating a crime explosion, and will remove our ability to communicate with tobacco users. This will make our problems worse - as our policies for other (illegal) drugs so aptly demonstrate.

* Dr David Haywood, a Christchurch writer, is not a smoker, does not like smoking and has never had any affiliation with the tobacco industry.