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Anti smoking campaigners are challenging the idea that making cigarettes available to guests is a part of manaakitanga.
Jan Pearson, the Cancer Society’s health promotion manager, says the issue of sharing tobacco in the home as a sign of hospitality was raised at the Oceania Tobacco Control Conference held in Auckland recently.
She says making New Zealand smoke-free by 2025 will require a lot of support for people to quit.
It may also require cultural changes in many Maori and Pacific Island whanau.
"There were speeches too from the Pacific around that and the difficulty they have in terms of the cultural obligation and wish to give. Duty free cigarettes are a really big issue for them, because people bring them in whether or not they smoke so that they can give them to family as a gift," Dr Pearson says.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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