Source: Radio New Zealand
No graphic images of damaged lungs and hearts, no health warnings of impotency, gangrenous feet and emphysema – experts say blackmarket cigarettes are undermining the efforts of health authorities to convince smokers to quit the potentially fatal habit.
An RNZ investigation into the tobacco blackmarket found packs of cigarettes and loose tobacco being sold brazenly over the counter at heavily discounted prices.
By law, cigarettes have to include pictures and health warnings covering at least 75-percent of the front of the packs. But the cigarettes being sold on the blackmarket are a throw back to the 1990s of glossy, embossed packaging and no ugly health warnings.
It took Ann about 25 years before she swapped cigarettes for a vape.
She was supportive of young people being priced out of the habit, but had concerns about the alternatives.
“I think it’s a good idea, but I don’t know if vaping’s a good alternative in the long run,” she said.
Ann said the warnings and images on the packet did make a difference in helping her quit, but the cost convinced her to make the swap.
Illicit cigarettes are being sold in Auckland without the warnings, with some going for as cheap as $13 a pack, less than a third of the price of a packet that includes excise tax.
An East Auckland shop visited by RNZ is selling 15 different packs of cigarettes. Only one carried the mandated health warnings.
Chief executive of the Asthma and Respiratory Foundation, Letitia Harding, said the grim warnings made a difference.
“They do deter people,” she said.
“I think it’s a reminder that cigarettes do have a long lasting negative impact on your health and can cause death.”
Harding said cheap tobacco often hit low income communities the hardest.
“People who are smoking, they can get these products cheaper, they can get products that we don’t actually know what’s in them because of the labeling, we don’t know how they’ve been produced, but they’re certainly not going to help people quit,” she said.
“They may actually have people be able to just start smoking because they’re cheap.”
She wanted to see hefty fines for those caught selling illicit cigarettes.
It was illegal for retailers to sell blackmarket smokes, with offenders facing a six-month prison sentence, a $20,000 fine or both.
“I think that’s the biggest way we can counter-act this, is just you’ve really got to fine these people that are selling them,” Harding said.
A Ministry of Health spokesperson told RNZ a lack of labelling and appropriate packaging is the primary tool health authorities used to identify and act against illicit products.
“In practice, tobacco products sold unlawfully in the domestic market most commonly present as non-compliant with packaging, labelling, or health warning requirements,” they said.
The spokesperson said evidence from the World Health Organisation showed prominent, graphic health warnings prompted quit attempts and cut back on the number of smokers, including among young people.
Public health research fellow Calvin Cochran from Otago University said warning labels helped hit home the consequences of smoking.
“It’s another missed opportunity for potentially another prompt for people to quit smoking or to ring quitline,” he said.
Cochran said illicit cigarettes were undercutting retail price, and that risked young people being able to afford to take up the habit.
“If you’ve got cigarettes on sale at dairies for a third of that price, half that price, again it puts cigarettes back into the disposable income bracket of young people,” he said.
“It’s really a dangerous thing.”
Manufacturers, importers, and distributors who fail to meet the requirements faced a fine of up to $600,000.
Large retailers could be met with a $200,000 dollar fine, while other smaller retailers risk a fine of $50,000.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
