ASH NZ outraged by NZ branded cigarettes

ASH NZ unites with the Smokefree Coalition and Te Reo Marama in calling for the immediate withdrawal of New Zealand branded duty-free cigarettes available in airport stores throughout the country.

ASH Director Ben Youdan says, “New Zealand prides itself in promoting a clean, green image, it is totally deplorable that these values are being high jacked to promote death. Tobacco kills 5000 Kiwis every year, and this sickening use of the New Zealand name is insult to all those lives that have been lost as a result of smoking.”

The cigarettes come in black packaging and include the familiar New Zealand silver fern, with the descriptor ‘luxuriously mild cigarettes’. Evidence clearly shows that every cigarette whether mild or strong is doing you equal damage.

“This is just another cynical tobacco industry exploitation of a lifestyle, associating it with a killer product in order to lie to their customers about the qualities of smoking. This shows that they will do anything to keep people addicted,” says Mr Youdan.

ASH NZ is calling for the removal of these duty-free cigarettes out off the selves now before New Zealand’s clean green image is polluted any further.

ENDS

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