December 13, 2021
Māori front foot for Smokefree 2025 plan
A Māori tobacco control advocate says the new Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 action plan will only work if it is community-led.
The plan includes oversight from a Māori task force, more frontline resources and law changes to restrict supply and lower the nicotine content of smoking tobacco.
Mihi Blair from ProCare says Māori continue to be over-represented among smokers, especially wāhine Māori, but they are also leading stop smoking efforts.
Government needs to enable communities to deliver.
“It is an addiction, it’s a generational addiction. We are trying to change the whakapapa from whakapapa of harm to whakapapa of aspiration and being in a smokefree world, let us do it the way we know how to work in our communities, and we’ve done that and we’ve produced many, many pieces of work and we feel quite confident the mahi we are doing using different approaches, the ministries are hearing us. We’ve just got to keep saying ‘we’ve got this,'”Ms Blair says.