Approval for a VIP smoking area at Auckland's SkyCity casino has prompted a High Court challenge over testing methods.

Duty-free cigarettes are in the firing line: good news for the Government's tax revenue but bad news for the dwindling numbers of smokers.

A nicotine inhaler which could offer new hope for smokers trying to give up the habit is already showing promising results, researchers say.

One of the world's largest tobacco companies has agreed to stop giving its employees free cigarettes following an investigation by the Ministry of Health.

The Cancer Society says Auckland City Council should introduce its ban on smoking in public three years earlier than planned - making the city smoke-free by 2015.

More Pacific Island countries are making moves to increase taxes on tobacco in a bid to reduce the high incidence of smoking - and related deaths - in the region.

New Zealand's target of having fewer than 5 per cent of the population smoking by 2025 is too hard and it will take "generations" to achieve, researchers say.

Corrections Minister Anne Tolley has called a successful court challenge against smoking bans in prisons a "waste of time" because the Government has already changed the law to justify the bans.

An urgent rule change by the Corrections Department which banned smoking in prisons has been ruled unlawful by a High Court judge.

A Westport man has told a jury the 8.5kg of cannabis police found in his home and vehicle was all for his own use.

Smoking is not only bad for human health, it can harm that of pets, too.

SkyCity is targeting smokers with an expanded casino area designed for customers who want to have a cigarette while gambling.

Children are more likely than their parents to give an accurate report of how much second-hand smoke they are exposed to at home and in the car, a new study has found.

The increase in tobacco tax in January may have pushed the smoking rate below 16 per cent, a survey suggests.

Forcing up tobacco taxes every year is having an effect. It's hitting the price point for many smokers, galvanising their resolve to quit.

Patients in closed mental health wards at Waitemata District Health Board are allowed out for cigarettes as a reward for good behaviour, a patient alleges.

Bus stops, train stations and ferry terminals should be declared "smoke-free" from September, the Auckland Council parks forum has recommended.

A former mental health patient, who was denied the right to smoke, believes allowing addicted patients to smoke has far more positives than negatives.

High court action will be launched tomorrow against a smoking ban in an acute mental health facility.

Beaches, civic plazas and on-street cafes will be made voluntarily smokefree across the Auckland region, under a draft council plan.

The Health Ministry said it was working on the idea of forcing tobacco retailers to be listed on a state register of tobacco outlets.

A legal high lobbyist says synthetic cannabis is a low-risk psychoactive substance that had not caused any death and was statistically safer than alcohol.

New Zealand communities are battling to rid themselves of synthetic cannabis - with the Government's promised solution months away.

A Dunedin father says he was tossed around his house "like paper" by his son trying to go cold turkey from the synthetic cannabis product, K2.

It was "insane" for a New Zealand-born mine worker to smoke in an underground coal mine in Queensland, a New Zealand coal mining industry boss says.