December 14, 2023
Smokefree fight won’t be stubbed out
The director of health reforms for west Auckland’s Waipareira Trust says addressing smoking means tackling wider social ills.
Lance Norman was at Parliament yesterday for the presentation of a 47,000 signature petition calling on the Government to back off its repeal of smokefree legislation.
Mr Norman says cutting the number of tobacco retailers, reducing the nicotine content and barring young people from buying smoking tobacco was world leading, but the mahi at community level won’t stop now the Government is taking those moves off the table.
“Smoking or gambling or alcohol problem are usually related to some sort of social challenges our whanau have so our work will continue to look after whanau who are struggling through poverty, cost of living, trying to take some of those pressures away so the need to have alcohol or tobacco to get them through the day is less required, but it ain’t over just because they think they’re going to get rid of it,” he says.