A toast to ghosts of Christmas Past

A toast to ghosts of Christmas Past

The Chief Executive of the Asthma Foundation, who will chair a special Smokefree Coalition seminar in Wellington on Monday, will be raising her glass and asking attendees to make a toast.

“To absent friends and family,” Jane Patterson will say, referring to the 5000 deaths in New Zealand each year that are attributable to tobacco use. Up to 600 of those deaths are Maori, according to the Ministry of Health.

Parliament’s Maori Affairs Select Committee has pointed a finger at the tobacco industry, hoping to gain a comprehensive understanding of its actions to promote tobacco use in New Zealand. Submissions on an enquiry by the Select Committee into the tobacco industry and the consequences of tobacco use among Maori close on 29 January, 2010.

The Smokefree Coalition is holding the seminar to make sure all its members contribute to the Select Committee submissions process, says Smokefree Coalition Director, Dr Prudence Stone.

Smokefree Coalition members include the National Heart Foundation, the New Zealand Dentist’s Association, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the New Zealand Medical Association, all of which sent delegates to a seminar held in Auckland last week and will send them to Wellington tomorrow.

While the mood is hopeful that the inquiry will be a watershed for the tobacco control community, Jane will remind attendees of the real reason that they have been called together.

“We are all touched – Maori in particular – by the grief and loss of loved ones, caused by this addictive product,” Jane says.

“The time has come for us to tell the Government we don't want it anymore. It’s time New Zealand stood up to big tobacco and pushed it off our shores.”

Submissions for the inquiry can be written, oral or made online at www.parliament.nz.

ENDS

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