Smoking gun damns tobacco industry

New Zealand tobacco companies drew a smokescreen around health concerns to delay Government restrictions,say researchers. ANGELA GREGORY reports.

Legal advice provided by New Zealand law firms sent useful smoke signals to an international tobacco industry intent on obstructing restrictions on cigarette sales.

Analysis of overseas documents has shown the New Zealand tobacco industry raised legal arguments that slowed the introduction of health warnings on cigarette packets here.

Some of those arguments were noted and appreciated by overseas parent tobacco companies.

A case study by researchers at Otago University's Wellington Medical School has found the New Zealand tobacco industry used dirty tactics and did not warn people about the health dangers of its products.

The industry has described the 108-page study, titled The Tobacco Industry in New Zealand: A Case Study of the Behaviour of Multinational Companies, as selective research with foregone conclusions.

But its authors, George Thomson and Dr Nick Wilson, said they found hundreds of documents that built a damning picture of an irresponsible tobacco industry in New Zealand.

Their report says the industry obscured the health issues around smoking in New Zealand and opposed nearly every substantive form of tobacco control over the past four decades.

It continued to object to new health warnings, and did not tell smokers and the public of all the known or likely dangers of tobacco use, mirroring the behaviour of the parent companies.

Hundreds of items with references to New Zealand were found on internet websites of American tobacco companies, their release ordered by United States courts.



Thousands of pages were found in British archives concerning British American Tobacco (BAT).

The tobacco companies trading in New Zealand are BAT (formerly Wills), Imperial Tobacco and Philip Morris.

Mr Thomson told the Herald it was evident that work by the New Zealand end of the tobacco operations was at times seen overseas as significant.

In September 1995, correspondence from BatMark, a British subsidiary of BAT, to New Zealand BAT subsidiary Wills noted the "tremendous progress" being made on the intellectual property argument concerning generic cigarette packaging.

The BatMark official, Paul Viner, wrote to Wills NZ managing director Phil Tunstall: "I am very happy to give you any assistance that I can. For example, if it is desirable to hold the International Trademarks Association conference in New Zealand, then we will certainly do all that we can to influence their decision.

"I would also like to think that we can use this very effective approach worldwide."

A Wills report to head office in Britain, dated October 1995, said the anti-tobacco initiatives announced by the Minister of Health were still "grinding" their way through the parliamentary systems.

"Final decisions on new, Australian-style pack warnings are still some way off and legal submissions presented by the industry on intellectual property have further slowed the implementation of the new warnings."

The study found other legal submissions made during the 1990s, raising areas of constitutional and administrative law, also helped delay stronger health warnings on cigarette packets.

Ministry of Health documents obtained under the Official Information Act referred to the role of law firm Chen & Palmer in this area.

The documents indicated such legal challenges were used against ministry efforts to strengthen health warnings and consumer information on tobacco packaging.

One of the lawyers involved was former Prime Minister Sir Geoffrey Palmer.



It appeared from the industry documents that tobacco companies believed pressure from Chen & Palmer had slowed the progress towards the new warnings.

A report from Wills (NZ) in October 1995 said: "The delays in introducing new warnings continued for some time ... The Tobacco Institute and the cigarette makers successfully delayed these warnings by five years, using lawyers and by asking for more time to present their arguments."

New warning messages were not introduced until late in 1999.

They were: Smoking kills, Smoking causes heart disease, Smoking causes lung cancer, Smoking is addictive, Smoking when pregnant harms your baby, and Your smoking can harm others.

The researchers said the most significant opposition to tobacco control in New Zealand began with the formation of the Tobacco Industry of New Zealand (TINZ) in 1980.

When the first comprehensive smoke-free laws in New Zealand were passed by Waitemata City Council in 1986, TINZ brought a legal suit.

It cost the council $40,000 to fight and the case dragged on for 18 months, during which no other councils tried to follow Waitemata's example.

TINZ also appeared to have taken a leading role in gathering support across a wide range of industries for opposition to the Public Health Commission, a semi-independent agency created in 1993 to achieve public health objectives.

It was in existence for only a couple of years, and the tobacco industry claimed some credit for its demise.

The researchers said the tobacco industry was forced to change tactics after large-scale revelations following the release of American company documents from 1994.

In the late 1990s, the New Zealand tobacco industry aimed to present the danger from tobacco use or smoke exposure as a matter of risk and informed choice.

But the researchers said knowledge of risk was rarely enough for smokers dependent on nicotine, or those exposed to second-hand smoke.

The tobacco industry in New Zealand tended to avoid any public discussion of the addictive nature of nicotine, and presented smoking as just a habit.

Though internal industry documents showed BAT and Philip Morris had known for several decades that nicotine was addictive, the companies had not actively and explicitly acknowledged the severity of the dependence.

The industry tried to portray the evidence on the hazards of smoking as confusing and ambiguous.

"In so doing they were not only misinforming the public but were avoiding the principles and letter of New Zealand consumer safety law," the researchers said.

It appeared industry people in New Zealand either lied about the harm from smoking, or were self-deluded in the face of contrary public opinion and scientific evidence, they said.

An industry document indicated preparations on the product-liability issue by law firm Simpson Grierson Butler White, suggesting there was some risk to the industry under the New Zealand legal system.

The researchers said cigarette companies could face exposure under the Fair Trading Act 1986 for engaging in misleading or deceptive advertising.

There were indications of industry actions to downplay and avoid scientific evidence that second-hand smoke was a risk to health.

Adverse effects of exposure to second-hand smoke include asthma, glue ear, and respiratory infections in infants and children.



Evidence from New Zealand and international data also suggested that maternal smoking in pregnancy was associated with some post-natal problems, such as low birth weight.

Adults exposed to second-hand smoke were considered at increased risk of heart disease, stroke and lung cancer.

A Ministry of Health report estimated around 400 deaths were attributable to second-hand smoke exposure in New Zealand each year.

The mortality estimate placed second-hand smoke among the worst environmental health risks in New Zealand, in the same range as deaths from motor-vehicle crashes.

"Given the overall body of evidence that second-hand smoke is an important risk factor to health, the position of the tobacco industry in New Zealand has continued to be misleading," they said.

The researchers said the parent companies of at least some of the New Zealand businesses knew of the risks posed by second-hand smoke.

The industry tried to suggest alternatives to smoke-free policies, such as ventilation, as acceptable and profitable.

That deflected attention from the hazard issue towards one of comfort, civility and choice.

In New Zealand, the solution to second-hand smoke hazards advocated by the tobacco industry was remarkably similar to that suggested by the Hotel Association of New Zealand.

HANZ chief executive Bruce Robertson has been quoted as saying science had not established a link between passive smoking and cancer.

The association was partly financed by the tobacco industry in its efforts to resist laws protecting hospitality staff from second-hand smoke.

The Minister of Health, Annette King, has written to HANZ to express concern about its opposition to the protection of workers from second-hand smoke without any apparent consideration of, or reference to, hard science and published evidence.

The researchers said she expressed surprise the TINZ executive director presented the science segment of the HANZ symposium in 2000 on second-hand smoke.

They believed the Government could better deal with tobacco industry behaviour only if the nature and detail of its activities were more transparent.

The Government needed sufficient powers to access all relevant material, such as internal company communications.

The researchers advocated a ban on smoking in all indoor environments to which the public had access, or where people worked.

Cigarette additives such as sweeteners and combustion accelerants should be removed, and regulations were needed to substantially lower levels of nicotine and tar in all tobacco.

The researchers said tobacco sales could be limited to licensed retail outlets, and taxes increased alongside campaigns to promote quitting.

They have made submissions to the parliamentary committee which reconvenes this week to consider the Smokefree Environments Enhanced Protection Bill.

The researchers argue that without such measures the "irresponsible behaviour of the tobacco industry in New Zealand will continue to impose a major burden on the health and welfare of its customers and on the public of New Zealand".

nzherald.co.nz/health