Editorial: Tobacco firms are having it both ways

Tobacco companies are allowed to challenge government moves to limit their marketing.

Tobacco companies have got it pretty good.

Not only are they allowed to peddle their poison to anyone of age who wants it, but they're also allowed to challenge government moves to limit their marketing.

Two separate cases have been brought against the Australian government after it introduced plain packaging for cigarettes.

It has to defend its law before the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations.

This has led to a delay in introducing such a bill in Parliament here, as the Government waits to see the outcome.

It's hard to accept that a country's health policies can be subject to this sort of challenge by big businesses.

It's hard to accept that a sovereign nation should have to defend moves it makes to protect the health of its young citizens.

Public health expert Robert Beaglehole says the Australian evidence shows standardised packaging of cigarettes has had an immense impact on smoking and has worked "almost like a vaccine against tobacco use" in children and young people.

He's among a growing number of people calling for the urgent introduction of plain packaging in New Zealand.

Maybe it is prudent to wait for the World Trade Organisation decision, as Associate Health Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga says, but we don't have to like the fact that the tobacco lobby is effectively buying time with its objections.

As Waiariki MP and Maori Party co-leader Te Ururoa Flavell says, waiting means more people die or get sick from smoking-related illnesses.

"We're tired of standing at the graveside of loved ones who have had their lives cut short from this highly addictive and poisonous drug."

Let's hope for a speedy, and common-sense, outcome.