Smoking toll 5000 a year

By REBECCA WALSH health reporter

New figures show smoking-related diseases killed about 5000 New Zealanders in 1999 - and Maori made up about 1000 of those deaths.

The figures, calculated by ASH (Action on Smoking and Health), estimate 3000 men and 2000 women died as a result of cigarette smoking. That equated to about 17 per cent of all deaths that year.

Dr Murray Laugesen, chairman of ASH, said the figures were "best estimates" derived from the most recent cause of death statistics published by the Ministry of Health's Health Information Service.

About 350 deaths were a result of nonsmokers inhaling second-hand smoke at home or work over a number of years.

An estimated 1000 Maori people died because of cigarette smoking and one-third of Maori deaths overall were due to cigarette smoking. Smoking killed one in two persistent smokers on average 14 years earlier than a nonsmoker. Smoking killed Maori on average 18 years sooner than the average nonsmoker.

Although the Quitline helped tens of thousands of people quit smoking each year, many relapsed.

Smokers would find it easier to "stay quit" if homes and workplaces were smokefree, Dr Laugesen said. The Smokefree Environments Amendment Bill, to go back before Parliament this month, would extend smokefree working conditions to factories, schools, pubs and clubs, if passed.

Dr Laugesen said it would improve air quality "drastically". The number of nonsmokers dying from heart attacks and strokes due to workplace smoke would be reduced "from nearly 100 a year now, to zero within 10 years".

A Ministry of Health spokesman said the figures sounded about right but no one from the ministry was available for comment.

Iain Potter, chief executive of the Health Sponsorship Council, said it would be some time before the full impact of Quitline and other campaigns were seen in the death figures.

He said the higher number of men dying from smoking was a reflection of the greater number of men who smoked during the 1960s and 70s. He feared the figures for women would catch up if the number of young women smoking was not reduced.