Dead smoker 'at top of addiction scale'

On the official scale for measuring nicotine addiction, Janice Pou, who smoked more than 30 cigarettes a day, rated 10 out of 10 when assessed by an addiction expert.

In the High Court at Auckland yesterday, Professor Doug Sellman said Mrs Pou met all the criteria for nicotine dependence and severe addiction to nicotine.

In a landmark case, Mrs Pou's children, Kasey and Brandon, as executors of her estate, are suing British American Tobacco NZ and HD & HO Wills NZ for $310,966 in damages for causing the lung cancer that killed her.

The 52-year-old died from lung cancer in September 2002, before her case could be completed.

In video evidence filmed to be shown posthumously, she said her last role in life would be to have her case against the tobacco companies heard.

Professor Sellman assessed Mrs Pou before her death. She told him she smoked between three and four cigarettes an hour.

When she woke in the morning she would smoke two cigarettes, then soon after a third with her morning cup of tea.

Her addiction was so severe that she once turned down a job at the local freezing works in Invercargill because she thought she would have to go for two to three hours without a cigarette.

Professor Sellman said Mrs Pou told him she once used money set aside for Christmas to buy cigarettes, and she was "crotchety and short-tempered" without them.

"She said she would be prepared to break the law [to get a cigarette] when she was like this."

Professor Sellman told Justice Graham Lang that Mrs Pou did not see herself as popular at school and, as an adult, fell for "hard-working, decent guys who ended up having roving eyes for other women".

She appeared to him as "a tired and worn-out looking 51-year-old" with a constant hacking cough.

Mrs Pou would need breaks after an hour of interviewing to have cigarettes, he said.

As the hour came up she became agitated. When she returned after two cigarettes she was composed and in control.

Professor Sellman carried out cognitive testing which showed that when Mrs Pou had a cigarette, her memory recall and functioning were better than when she was due to have one.

In one cigarette break, Professor Sellman spoke to Mrs Pou's son, Brandon.

"She smoked all the time, morning, noon and night," Brandon said.

There was a constant smell of smoke in the house and he used to get upset when in a car with his mother smoking.

He tried to tell her to stop when, as a primary school pupil, he learned the dangers of smoking.

Mrs Pou told Professor Sellman that when she was stressed she could smoke up to 50 or 60 cigarettes a day.