Ash turns heat on Govt's financing for 5-year tobacco-control plan

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.