Ministry Tobacco Survey Findings Welcome

Smokefree Coalition Media Release, 28 June 2007

The Smokefree Coalition is welcoming the release of the Ministry of Health's findings from the first New Zealand Tobacco Use Survey (NZTUS).

Director Mark Peck says the findings confirm what tobacco control groups have long understood to be the case, but it was good now to have some official figures.

"Almost all smokers regret they ever started, and even the young ones are saying they wouldn't smoke if they could have their time over.

"They hope to stop by their twenties, but smoking is such a powerful and destructive addiction, that many of them won't stop, and will probably die younger as a result."

The NZTUS shows higher smoking rates among Maori, Pacific peoples, people on lower incomes and those with less education, and Mr Peck says that it's also tragic to have those disparities confirmed.

"The tobacco control community will find these figures very useful, and they'll certainly inform our future efforts to reducing smoking initiation so that fewer New Zealanders fall prey to what Associate Health Minister Damien O'Conner rightly calls a 'horrible' addiction."

Mr Peck says the survey throws out a number of challenges and he looks forward to addressing these with the Ministry in the future.

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