New Zealand delegates push for tobacco free world by 2040

New Zealand delegates to the World Conference on Tobacco or Health (WCTOH) taking place this week in Singapore want the world to be tobacco free by 2040. The recommendation is one of five submitted by members of the New Zealand National Tobacco Control Working Group (NTCWG*) to the conference’s Declaration Committee.

It calls for the United Nations and World Health Organization to adopt as a goal a tobacco free world, where less than 5 percent of people smoke.

Smokefree Coalition Director Prudence Stone says the recommendations reflect New Zealand’s national agenda to become smokefree by 2025.

“New Zealand is one of the first nations in the world to commit to an endgame strategy for tobacco. Our recommendations reflect this commitment as well as the conference theme of acting locally to affect global change towards a tobacco free world.

“New Zealand stands as an example to the rest of the world with what Hon Tariana Turia calls our ‘bold but achievable’ smokefree vision.”

Other New Zealand recommendations include that:

• all United Nations member states agree to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), a public health treaty that provides an internationally co-ordinated response to combating the tobacco epidemic

• an independent global panel be established to monitor, report and hold accountable nations that do implement the FCTC

• excluding tobacco from all international trade and investment agreements and treaties

• tobacco be treated in the same way as other harmful products that are specifically excluded from trade agreements such as arms, ammunition and implements of war, ozone depleting CFCs, asbestos, organic pollutants and endangered species.

ENDS

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