SmokeFree amendments scrapped – Tobacco Industry gets value for money from this Government
With the repeal of the SmokeFree Amendments that will see 8000 deaths so National can afford tax cuts for their rich mates alongside former Tobacco Lobbyist Casey Costello lobbying for Big Tobacco interests, you haver to admit the Tobacco Industry got amazing bang for their buck!
The farce is Luxon is demanding National, ACT and NZ First highlight donations from tobacco when that donation was made out in the open!
Here’s Big Tobacco stoking Dairy crime fear while ignoring that it’s their addictive product fuelling that Dairy crime…
The ‘corner dairy campaign’ quietly backed by big tobacco
A campaign to “save our stores” from a smokefree initiative looks like a grassroots effort. The truth is more complicated.
Since 1 August, ads have started showing up on Facebook urging people to support a petition to “save our stores”.
The ads, which lead to a website called Save Our Stores, ask users to sign a petition to repeal the Smokefree 2025 Act. The act includes a measure to reduce the number of stores selling full strength tobacco from 6000 nationwide to 600 by July 2024.
At first glance, the campaign appears to be an initiative from dairy owners. Under a headline of “who we are” on the website’s “about us” page, a dairy owner said to be from Lower Hutt is featured: “My name is Bhavesh. I’m a dairy owner in Lower Hutt. I’ve been serving customers for 17 years.”
However, smaller type at the bottom of the page says the website is “proudly supported” by tobacco companies BAT (British American Tobacco) New Zealand and Imperial Brands. The website’s privacy policy says the website is “provided” by the tobacco companies.
The website encourages dairy owners to get involved by printing out posters to display in their stores. These include messages in bold type warning: “This dairy is under threat of closure” with a QR code which leads to the website.
LOOK. AT. THE. POSTERS. AND. TELL. ME. THEY. ARE. NOT. POLITICAL!
The Tobacco Industry has already made its ‘donation’ to this Government, so pretending the Rights hands are clean over Tobacco donations is a fucking joke!
Perhaps a better question should be ‘does anyone in this new Government NOT work for the Tobacco industry’?
Tobacco kills 67% of those who use it!
No other product would be allowed that level of failure!
Maybe the first packet is free choice, but once you are addicted, you are hooked!
We only allow Tobacco to be sold legally because prohibition only benefits organised crime when it is forced onto the black market.
The jackboot of the State should be fixed to the throats of all vice industry who harvest addiction, they should be forced to pay for the social damage their product creates.
The Vice Industry should all be under far more restrictions and costs because they trade on addictions that are incredibly damaging.
This Government may have not acted illegally over Tobacco, but they have acted immorally!
They have aided industry who harvest addictions and reap misery before the well being of our people.
This is the value of what we have mutated into. This is us now all because Jacinda had the temerity of saving 20 000 lives from Covid!
This is what we is now.
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Can someone please explain why there is no focus on the removal of the requirement to reduce nicotine in cigarettes? Won’t that help make them less addictive? Saying nicotine is like caffeine is almost irrelevant, because that’s the driver of the addiction. Why did they remove that arm of the legislation? There is no justification for that. Not that the crime increase seems to have any merit either.
Costello and co have the tobacco industry so far up their arse it make this country look stupid….again. She’s a hack.
Nicotine is only a little bit like caffeine – it’s far more addictive. My mother started smoking when she was thirteen. My father didn’t start until he was eighteen and trying to stay awake on a ship somewhere to the north of Russia. But both smoked twenty or thirty day for much of the rest of their lives. Then my mother was told if she didn’t give up, she would be dead within eighteen months. She eventually died of lung cancer but and eighty-seven about twenty-five years later. She told me just before she died that every morning she woke up she felt the absolute craving for a cigarette. She didn’t just want one she needed one. She was very strong minded woman, and that was pretty much the only thing that stopped her from going back to smoking. That and the support of my dad who also gave up. I’m not sure that reducing the nicotine content would have a great deal of effect on the craving – it might well be that they simply smoke more cigarettes, which the tobacco companies would love of course.
The whole thing is disgusting .I hold no hope for the elderly as Costello is the minister for old people as well .She needs to fuck off back under the rock she climbed from under
“He who pays the piper calls the tune “
It seems obvious to me that moneyed interests are behind the backward steps in government actions. The answer must be; get at the root of the problem. We need a law to protect citizens. A business that uses lies to provide proven harmful products or services must be stopped. The result must be the imprisonment and fining of those in the administration of the business that uses lies to harm. Administrators in a business must all responsible for truth. The Horizon Scandal in the UK shows the need for all the people with power to ensure that the promotion of any harm is stopped. (Or else). This idea is up for polite debate.
While I am bothering to have a say, consider the power that lobbyists have over weak-minded MPs. Lobbyists and their lobbying must be known to the public. Public needs to know what lobbyists are saying. Sessions can be filmed and uploaded to the internet so all the lobbying can be followed. Then the public can recognise lies, misinformation, and relevant information missed out.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/917353468?
Chloe on the bill.