Graphic message of death next step in anti-smoking war

By CATHERINE MASTERS

A human brain is cut in half to show the clogged artery that led to a stroke.

Another picture shows rotting lungs, accompanied by the message that 85 per cent of lung cancer is caused by smoking and 80 per cent of victims will die within three years.

Yet another picture exposes in vivid colour a damaged heart muscle. Another is of a very pregnant woman, cigarette in hand, with the words "Cigarettes hurt babies" alongside.

These large graphic warnings are on cigarette packets in Canada, and could soon be required in New Zealand once the Smoke-free Environments Amendment Bill becomes law.

The warnings would have to cover 50 per cent of the cigarette or tobacco pack.

The bill comes before Parliament again on Wednesday for further debate, and Labour MP Steve Chadwick, chairwoman of the select committee studying the bill, expects it will be passed before Christmas.

When it is passed - and voting so far indicates it will fly through - it will change the smoky culture of New Zealand society, not overnight, but within one or two years.

Gone will be smoke-filled bars, gone will be plumes of smoke hanging over the poker machines at casinos, gone will be the ability to smoke at the rugby club or in the RSA.

Parents will not be able to smoke while watching their children play netball, cricket or rugby within school grounds, and early childhood centres will also be smokefree.

And those who continue to smoke where they still can, will probably be confronted by the graphic warnings, similar to those in Canada, every time they reach for their pack.

The bill is intended mainly to protect workers from the harmful effects of secondhand smoke, but it is also another step in the drive against tobacco, which is said to be responsible for around five million deaths a year worldwide, including nearly 5000 in New Zealand.

It is hoped it will help encourage the 25 per cent of New Zealanders who still smoke to give up.

Anti-smoking lobby groups expect it to pave the way for even more change. Their next goal is regulations to reduce the number of harmful ingredients in cigarettes.

Each cigarette contains about 4000 chemicals, and deadly gases, such as hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide, are formed each time one is lit.

Trish Fraser, the director of lobby group Ash, says regulation has to be the priority.

"The tobacco industries need to be pulled into line, and they need to be operating in a highly regulated environment that the Government controls, not them," she said.

Steve Chadwick says that is not this bill's intent, but she welcomes lobbying for further measures.

"This is a big societal change proposed by this bill, and that was as far as we were going to go," she said.

"I'm not going to speak out for future legislators."

There was definite potential for Canadian-type warnings, she said.

"I think they are shockingly graphic. They are yucky. We certainly looked at them all in the select committee."

Ash is disappointed that the bill does not stop tobacco companies displaying packets of cigarettes behind the counters of dairies, instead of forcing them to be kept out of sight, signs to be put up at each point of sale.

But Steve Chadwick says the size of displays will be cut and "creative" ways of getting around point of sale advertising bans would be blocked.

Smokers may yet fight back if Europe is anything to go by.

European Union guidelines now require cigarette packets to carry health warnings similar to the ones New Zealand has.

But in France a company is making colourful cardboard sleeves to slip over packs and cover the warnings, and in Spain, stickers are sold for the same purpose.