11 Mar 2010

Tobacco ban risks black market, MPs told

10:19 pm on 11 March 2010

The country's largest tobacco company says if tobacco is banned in New Zealand it will only help grow an already established black market.

The general manager of British American Tobacco in New Zealand, Graeme Amey, appeared before the Maori Affairs Select Committee on Thursday.

The select committee is looking at the tobacco industry and the consequences of smoking for Maori.

British American is the first tobacco company to give a submission at the hearing.

Mr Amey told the MPs that tobacco is an already highly regulated product, and any further regulation or ban would only increase an already active black market trade.

He says the Government needs to clamp down on the illicit trade of tobacco products.

Mr Amey says prohibition will not stop people from smoking as long as they choose to.

Under questioning from Maori Party MP Hone Harawira, Mr Amey said he did not know how much his company spent on marketing but denied a strategy of targeting Maori and Maori youth.

He says British American Tobacco accepts there are significant risks with smoking but at the end of the day adult consumers are making adult choices.

Maori babies exposed to danger

More than half of Maori babies are not getting adequate protection from the dangers of smoking from the moment they are conceived, a University of Auckland tobacco researcher told MPs.

Dr Marewa Glover, the university's director for tobacco control research, told the committee she is sick of continued Government negligence on tobacco controls for Maori.

Dr Glover says Government funding needs to be more effective to prevent Maori babies dying at a disproportionate rate.

She told MPs 45% of Maori women smoke while pregnant, while 29% are smoking four to six weeks after giving birth, which is two to three times the rate of non-Maori women.

She says there is a fraudulent and fruitless waste of tobacco control dollars by the Government which is undermining efforts to reduce Maori smoking.