KEY POINTS:
Luxembourg-made cigarettes packaged in black with a silver fern emblem on it are causing a stir at New Zealand airports where they are being sold.
The Smokefree Coalition is calling for their immediate withdrawal saying they are an affront to all New Zealanders.
The cigarettes come in black packaging which includes the familiar New Zealand silver fern, and the descriptor "luxuriously mild cigarettes".
Te Reo Marama (the Maori Smokefree Coalition) also say the New Zealand-branded duty free cigarettes should be immediately withdrawn from airport stores.
Smokefree Coalition director Mark Peck called the cigarettes an outrageous attempt to exploit New Zealand's image.
"Travellers through New Zealand airports are being encouraged to take something clean, green and nuclear-free home with them to smoke," he said.
"This association of our nation's positive attributes with poisonous and addictive cigarettes is despicable.
"The cigarettes aren't even made here, so exploiting New Zealand's favourable image overseas is the only reason for the branding."
Mr Peck said branding them as "luxuriously mild" further peddled the lie that so called mild cigarettes were somehow better for the smoker.
Te Reo Marama director Shane Kawenata Bradbrook said the silver fern was an internationally recognisable symbol of New Zealand and its inclusion as branding for cigarettes was an insult.
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH NZ) agrees and calls for the immediate withdrawal of New Zealand branded duty-free cigarettes available in airport stores throughout the country.
ASH Director Ben Youdan says: "New Zealand prides itself in promoting a clean, green image, it is totally deplorable that these values are being high jacked to promote death. Tobacco kills 5000 Kiwis every year, and this sickening use of the New Zealand name is insult to all those lives that have been lost as a result of smoking."
"This is just another cynical tobacco industry exploitation of a lifestyle, associating it with a killer product in order to lie to their customers about the qualities of smoking. This shows that they will do anything to keep people addicted," says Mr Youdan.
- NZPA, NZ HERALD STAFF
