Associate Health Minister Casey Costello. Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
Associate Health Minister Casey Costello has been back in the firing line on Wednesday over big tobacco's influence, with a health select committee erupting into heated debate on government plans to roll out oral tobacco and nicotine products.
Last year, Cabinet agreed in principle to allow the sale of smokeless products (such as Swedish snus and nicotine pouches) - subject to the products meeting "safety requirements" and regulatory controls to stop youth access.
Costello - who has repeatedly denied allegations of an overly-cosy relationship with the tobacco industry - assured MPs she remained focused on achieving the Smokefree 2025 goals.
The question was how to get there.
"I think we can all agree we've got a real anomaly around the fact that we have greater levels of regulation around vapes than we do around tobacco, so I think there's a lot of work around how we do that.
"I'm working through the advice from the [expert advisory] group to understand what is the next step, what are things we need to do to ensure there's the appropriate level of regulatory control, and how do we move forward to ensure we don't end up with a system where people go back to smoking."
The Minister favours harm reduction: encouraging smokers to switch to e-cigarettes and oral nicotine products.
However, Labour's health spokesperson Dr Ayesha Verrall noted Parliament had already struggled to get the vaping genie back into its bottle.
"Why would you consider introducing a new form of nicotine to New Zealand that will only create another pool of addiction in young people?" she asked.
Costello accused her of "conflating" different issues.
"We didn't have any [vaping] regulation to start with... we went from no regulation to reactive regulation."
Youth vaping rates were now decreasing - but other options were needed for that hardcore group of older smokers who were struggling to kick the habit, Costello said.
"There are two countries that have lower smoking rates than us, and they have other nicotine products."
Verrall grilled the Minister repeatedly whether she would accept her expert advisory group's recommendation to only introduce oral nicotine products if there was evidence they were safer than tobacco and reduced smoking.
"Why won't you accept an evidence-based recommendation?"
Costello retorted she was not saying she would not accept it.
"But there are a number of recommendations in that report and we will work through as to how we can operationalise those recommendations and how it ultimately contributes to our...."
"We expect people to say 'no' to drugs every day - just say no to this!" Verrall interjected.
Lessons from Australia on what not to do
National's Cameron Luxton had a less combative question for the Minister, asking whether she had been observing developments in Australia following what he called its "poorly designed and burdensome" regulatory approach.
Over audible mutterings from Verrall about that question coming out of the Taxpayers' Union playbook, Costello said indeed there had been an increase in smoking rates in Australia.
"And the influence of organised crime into that space has been significantly damaging to communities.
"So well-intentioned, burdensome regulations have actually had an perverse outcome, is what you've told us?" Luxton pressed.
"Yes, that was the indication from the increasing levels of smoking that we've seen in Australia," she replied.
"And decreased excise," Luxton finished for her.
Big Tobacco targeting younger generation - public health expert
Otago University tobacco control researcher Dr Jude Ball told RNZ the risks from black market tobacco were well known and there were ways to mitigate them.
However, unleashing another whole class of addictive products would not further the ultimate goal of a smoke-free New Zealand.
"There's no evidence that oral nicotine products can help people quit smoking. But there is quite strong evidence that these products are being marketed to and used by young people."
Tobacco companies had "a foothold" in the vaping market - but it was dominated by Chinese manufacturers and local producers, she said.
"So they've all got these oral nicotine products and they're lobbying and pushing really hard to get access to market so they can claw back their share of the nicotine market and expand it, by addicting young people."
The reason smokers struggled to quit was because cigarettes were "incredibly addictive and available everywhere".
Unfortunately legislation to cut the amount of nicotine in cigarettes and other measures were repealed by this government before they could be put into action, she said.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
