May 31, 2017
Coffin nails filling urupa
It's World Smokefree Day, and Zoe Hawke from tobacco control advocacy group Hapai Te Hauora says she wants to see fewer gravestones.
She says it's time to stop selling cigarettes in dairies as a step towards the target of Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025 – and as a way to cut violent crime directed at dairy workers.
Ms Hawke says cigarettes are now causing harm to those who sell them, as well as to smokers and those they smoke around.
"Our urupa are covered with incidents of harm from tobacco and we need to stop that. That is what Smokefree 2025 is about. That is why we are anti-tobacco, because it is killing us and we want to see more in place to prevent further harm," she says.
There are glimmers of hope, such as the use of e-cigarettes which many Maori are using as an alternative or cessation tool,
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