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Can we have more tax please?

Sep 29th, 2015
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Tobacco taxes play an important role in cutting smoking rates in New Zealand. Since 2010 taxes on tobacco products have risen 10% every year with an overall average drop in cigarette sales of 23%. With the last scheduled rise in tobacco tax approaching …Can we have more tax please?

“Continuing tobacco tax is the single best thing we can do for health.” Emeritus Professor Robert Beaglehole

Tobacco taxes play an important role in cutting smoking rates in New Zealand. Since 2010 taxes on tobacco products have risen 10% every year with an overall average drop in cigarette sales of 23%.

With the last scheduled rise in tobacco tax approaching quickly, Stephanie Erick, director for Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) New Zealand, agrees with other tobacco control experts. “Tobacco taxes are working for New Zealand, but they end next year” she says. “So we need to continue with taxes – at 20% per year.”

Research shows that continuing tax increases would have multiple benefits to New Zealanders, including health gains, net-cost savings for the health system, and improving fairness between Māori and non-Māori.

Youth and young adults are particularly sensitive to price. If tobacco prices increase, this group is most likely to reduce their consumption. The ASH year 10 surveys reflect this as they show a drop in smoking prevalence among 14-15 year olds.

An American expert on the economics of tobacco control is visiting New Zealand on the 9th of October to support the tobacco control sector’s appeal for excise to be increased and extended beyond January 2016.

Professor Frank Chaloupka from the University of Illinois will join a group of leading tobacco control experts who are urging the government to review its decision not to extend increases in excise tax beyond 2016.

More information on tobacco tax in New Zealand is available from the ASH website: http://www.ash.org.nz/our-current-campaigns/tobacco-tax/

ASH New Zealand is a registered charity that produces and collects sound evidence to enable policy makers and communities to contribute to a Smokefree Aotearoa New Zealand by 2025.

http://business.scoop.co.nz/2015/09/29/can-we-have-more-tax-please/

 

NZ smoking rates decrease – but not as fast as Australia

Sep 28th, 2015
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/lifestyle/news/article.cfm?c_id=6&objectid=11520097

Smokers are a dwindling group in New Zealand with tobacco consumption down 23 per cent in the past five years.

But anti-smoking advocates say rates here are still not falling as fast as in Australia, where the introduction of plain packaging has been credited with a 20 per cent drop in consumption in just three years.

The figures, supplied to the Ministry of Health by New Zealand tobacco manufacturers, show average cigarette consumption has declined 6.3 per cent each year since 2010 equating to a 23 per cent decline in consumption overall.

In Australia figures show consumption has plunged 13 per cent in the last year and 19.6 per cent in the three years since plain packaging laws and tobacco tax increases were introduced.

“Standardised packs and annual tax increases have provided a powerful double-whammy that’s saving many lives across the ditch,” said Smokefree Coalition Chair Dr Jan Pearson.

“New Zealand’s falling smoking rates must have big tobacco worried, but if we stopped playing ‘wait and see’ and introduced standardised packs we’d worry them even more and prevent a lot of sickness and suffering.”

The coalition and another group, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), are calling on Government to make plain packaging legislation an immediate priority.

“Standardised packs are inevitable. Britain and Ireland will introduce them from May next year and the entire European Union is expected to do the same. Many other countries are considering the move and in years to come we’ll wonder what the fuss was about – just as we did with smokefree bars and workplaces,” Dr Pearson said.

“The evidence is clear that plain packaging stops tobacco companies’ ability to advertise through their clever and attractive branding. That means fewer people will die of smoking-related diseases, and fewer children will grow up to become the next generation of addicted smokers. Other states aren’t scared of big tobacco and we shouldn’t be either.”

ASH director Stephanie Erick said standardised packs and annual tax increases were just two of 13 measures Smokefree Coalition members advocate for through an evidence-based National Action Plan to achieve the Smokefree 2025 Goal.

She said smoking rates had reduced sharply in a generation – from 33 per cent of adults in 1983 to less than 15 per cent right now – but more could be done to become smokefree.

The Smokefree National Action Plan was developed by the smokefree sector pending the Government’s development of a strategy towards Smokefree 2025.

The pending development of a governmental tobacco control plan was announced by Associate Minister of Health Peter Dunne recently, during his launch of the Alcohol and Drug Policy in August.

Plain packaging legislation could decrease number of smokers in NZ even further

Sep 28th, 2015
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http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/national/plain-packaging-legislation-could-decrease-number-smokers-nz-even-further

According to the Ministry of Health, there are less smoking adults in New Zealand. In 1983, 33% of adults were smokers, compared to 15% right now. But smokefree organisations say the Government need to make plain packaging of cigarettes an immediate priority.

Australia have taken the lead and have seen results since implementing plain cigarette packaging.

Figures show that in the last year, the consumption of cigarettes in Australia has decreased by 13%. In the last three years since the plain packaging and tobacco tax increases came in to effect, consumption of cigarettes has plunged 19.6%.

Smokefree Coalition Chair and National Smokefree Working Group member Dr Jan Pearson says, “Standardised packs and annual tax increases have provided a powerful double-whammy that’s saving many lives across the ditch,”

The evidence is clear that plain packaging stops tobacco companies’ ability to advertise through their clever and attractive branding. That means fewer people will die of smoking-related diseases, and fewer children will grow up to become the next generation of addicted smokers. Other states aren’t scared of big tobacco and we shouldn’t be either.”

Smoking rates fall and sales drop almost 4%

Sep 27th, 2015
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http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/285396/smoking-rates-fall-and-sales-drop-almost-4-percent

The tax on cigarettes has increased 10 percent annually since 2010.

Ministry of Health figures show the average adult consumption has dropped 6.3 percent a year since 2010.

Tobacco and cigarette sales dropped almost 4 percent between 2013 to 2014.

The Government has added 10 percent tax annually on cigarettes since 2010.

Chair of End Smoking NZ and Associate professor at Massey University, Marewa Glover, said the tax measure was behind the decline.

“We’re just thrilled because it does show the tax policy works for a start to encourage people to stop smoking, it’s hurting the tobacco industry sales year on year, with these figures coming out it gives the proof that we just need to continue with this tax increase each year and we’ll keep getting that drop.”

Ms Glover said while it was promising, more needed to be done if the Government wanted to reach its 2025 smokefree target.

Big tobacco should be excluded from the TPPA

Aug 25th, 2015
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/comment/71394377/big-tobacco-should-be-excluded–from-the-tppa

PHILIP PATTEMORE

The TPPA may stop New Zealand become smokefree on schedule.

OPINION: Most of us are familiar with the cost to personal health from smoking tobacco, and from passive exposure of children and others who have no choice to tobacco smoke. Tobacco is the largest preventable cause of mortality worldwide – every year 6 million people (more than the population of New Zealand) die from smoking, and another 600,000 die from passive exposure to tobacco smoke. Globally, 50 per cent of children are exposed (UN estimates).

That’s why the majority of people, including smokers in this country, want stronger regulation and more taxes. New Zealand doctors and nurses are therefore deeply concerned about the protections and rights given to tobacco corporations by the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) .

But its not just smokers and their families that are adversely affected by tobacco. Few people are aware of the environmental and human costs of farming and processing tobacco particularly in developing countries. Tobacco plants displace food crops, and cause serious nicotine poisoning in farmers and tobacco workers (often children). Curing the green Virginia tobacco leaf requires huge amounts of firewood, mostly obtained in these countries by cutting down forests, and consequently contributing to landslides, water catchment disruption, flooding and loss of biodiversity.

Two tobacco leaf merchants and four multinational cigarette companies control the international tobacco market, and reap massive profits. The corporations are currently using their financial and legal muscle to challenge tobacco control public health legislation in Uruguay, Australia and other countries. Defending this challenge in Uruguay was so expensive that the government was about to repeal the law before being rescued by the Bloomberg Philanthropic Trust and the Gates Foundation.

Australia believes that they were fully entitled to make tobacco plain packaging laws. However it has already cost the Australian government an estimated 50 million dollars contesting first part of the tobacco company challenge – simply establishing that there is no basis for that challenge.

Given these facts it is greatly concerning but perhaps not surprising that these tobacco corporations, along with other corporations, have had access to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement texts that have been denied to New Zealand citizens and health analysts.

Within the United States there have been strong calls from many to “carve” tobacco out of trade agreements. This has been opposed by other politicians protecting the financial interests of their tobacco growing states and the heavyweight US Chamber of Commerce. This lobbying group for large businesses, with its worldwide affiliates, use their influence to challenge tobacco control measures, such as warning labels on cigarette packs. In Ukraine their influence was used to bring a World Trade Organisation dispute against Australia for their plain packaging legislation, even though Ukraine does not export tobacco to Australia. In Nepal the Chamber affiliates have challenged and delayed the implementation of graphic labels for cigarette packages. It is an organisation that seems willing, even determined to make things difficult for health in poor countries.

The TPPA gives giant tobacco corporations and their ethically-challenged supporting offices unprecedented entry into our country’s public health policies.

New Zealand has dragged its feet implementing plain packaging laws for tobacco. Australia took 19 months, Ireland 22 months and the UK 35 months; we’re 38 months and still awaiting a second reading of the bill. The most likely reason is the one given by John Key in 2013 – we need to wait and see what happens to the challenge in Australia. In other words we have suffered a “chill” based on our existing agreements, and Australia’s case, and here we are about to hand over yet more power to the tobacco corporations. How will TPPA nations like Vietnam have the resources to tackle this issue if we don’t?

Globally, there are even bigger risks to health: other investment agreements that will likely cross fertilise with the TPPA. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and PACER Plus negotiations include some of the poorest nations on the planet. If we let the TPPA lock in the ability of big tobacco companies to sue New Zealand we will risk making our Asian and Pacific neighbors (such as Kiribati, Vanuatu, Myanmar and Cambodia) susceptible to that same toxic and unethical power.

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New Zealand is the first nation to set a date to be smokefree. However, we are not shaping up well to achieve the Government’s own target of a Smokefree Aotearoa by 2025.. Our Government needs to be consistent in its commitment to this goal..

We should have nothing to do with an industry that has such a chilling reputation for making its billions from death, disease and environmental degradation. We need to tell them and their American and Japanese representatives that, just as New Zealand rejoices in being nuclear-free, we are determined to become the world’s first smokefree nation.

Philip Pattemore is an associate professor of paediatrics at Otago University, and wrote this on behalf of Doctors for Healthy Trade.

– The Dominion Post

Modelling the implications of regular increases in tobacco taxation in the tobacco endgame

Aug 21st, 2015
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The impact of an increase in excise tax on the retail price of tobacco in New Zealand

Jul 2nd, 2015
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http://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/early/2015/07/02/tobaccocontrol-2015-052259.abstract

Abstract

Background In 2010, the New Zealand (NZ) government introduced an annual 10% tobacco excise tax increase. We examined retailers’ adherence to recommended retail prices (RRP), and whether the RRP included the full tax increase.

Methods We collected price data on three British American Tobacco (BAT) factory-made cigarette brands, (premium, mainstream, and budget), and one roll-your-own tobacco brand before and after the 2014 tax increase from a sample of tobacco retailers. We examined price increases in each tobacco brand and compared these with the RRP. The extent to which the excise tax increases had been included in the RRP since 2010 was estimated using data sourced from the Ministry of Health and NZ Customs.

Findings The median increase in price from before to after the tax change was only 3% for the budget brand (461 retailers). This contrasted with the median of 8% for the premium brand (448 retailers), and 11% for both mainstream and roll-your-own brands (471 and 464 retailers, respectively). While many retail outlets made changes according to the RRP set by BAT, several did not comply. Our analyses suggest BAT may be undershifting excise tax on the budget brand, and overshifting tax on brands in other price partitions.

Conclusions Tobacco companies do not appear to be increasing the RRPs of budget brands in line with tobacco excise tax increases. The increasing price differential between budget brands, and mainstream and premium brands may undermine cessation and impede realisation of New Zealand’s Smokefree 2025 goal.

Save lives and don’t buckle to tobacco industry on plain packaging

Jun 29th, 2015
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/69744829/save-lives-and-dont-buckle-to-tobacco-industry-on-plain-packaging

Cigarette packaging is a battleground fought over by the anti-smoking lobby and the tobacco industry.

OPINION: In March 2011, the Government committed to becoming the first country in the world to be smokefree by 2025, an innovative goal to reduce the smoking prevalence to lower than 5 per cent.

To help achieve this the Government introduced tobacco plain packaging legislation in April 2012.

Australia became the first country to enact plain packaging in November 2011, taking 19 months to bring the legislation to completion.

It was followed earlier this year by Ireland (22 months) and the United Kingdom (35 months). The legislation in New Zealand is still awaiting its second reading, after more than 38 months, with no clear date from the Government on when it will proceed.

To understand the lack of progress in New Zealand it is imperative to recognise the importance of tobacco industry delay tactics.

These have been exposed through litigation in the United States and made publically available through the Legacy library – an archive that contains more than 80 million pages of previously secret tobacco industry documents.

My own research analysing these documents has revealed that, during the early 1990s, tobacco companies became increasingly worried about an innovative idea like plain packaging (first proposed in Canada and Australia) as it would severely regulate the branding and marketing of their products.

In response, they requested legal opinions on the legality of restricting and prohibiting use of their trademarks and were told privately that international treaties afforded little protection.

However, publically, the companies threatened to sue the Canadian and Australian governments for billions of dollars causing both governments to withdraw their proposals, which successfully delayed tobacco plain packaging for decades. The companies also recognised that they couldn’t let any future plain packaging proposal be treated as a public health issue. Instead the focus must remain on convoluted arguments surrounding the expropriation of trademarks and intellectual property.

Fast-forward to today and the New Zealand Government is facing the same trade threats from tobacco companies. In response it has repeatedly said it would have to “wait and see” what happens with two legal trade challenges by Philip Morris International against the plain packaging policy in Australia before proceeding.

I have spent the last couple of weeks in Auckland and Wellington interviewing health advocates, legal scholars, and Government officials to investigate New Zealand’s pending plain packaging legislation. While some interviewees recognised the lack of political will, an overwhelmingly number of interviewees cited the pending trade lawsuits against Australia as having a direct impact on the lack of progress in New Zealand.

My research suggests tobacco industry trade threats and challenges are having a chilling effect and attempt to pre-empt Government regulatory authority. However, early analysis also suggests the Government, and more importantly the media, continues to frame this issue around international trade instead of highlighting the impact of tobacco, which in New Zealand kills approximately 5000 people a year (about 13 people a day) and severely affects marginalised populations, especially Maori women.

If your Government continues to succumb to tobacco industry pressure and treat plain packaging as an international trade and investment issue they run the risk of breaking their own promise and commitment to become smokefree by 2025.

Eric Crosbie is a PhD student at the University of Arizona. He visited New Zealand in early June as part of his research into the influence of tobacco companies on political process.

Minister claims duty free tobacco cut ‘results’

Jun 25th, 2015
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http://www.trbusiness.com/regional-news/asia-pacific/nz-minister-says-lower-tobacco-limit-yields-results/77413

The New Zealand Government’s Customs Minister Nicky Wagner claims that the country’s customs service has destroyed more than 2.5 tonnes of ‘abandoned tobacco’ and collected NZ$1.35m ($933,324) in additional duty and taxes since it reduced the duty free tobacco allowance last November.

In a statement, Wagner said: “People seem to be learning about the change. The amount of tobacco abandoned at airports by those not wanting to pay duty is dropping from the 100 kilograms Customs was initially collecting every week.”

“The change was well signalled in advance and advertising to highlight the change continues. Customs’ passenger surveys show most people are aware of and accept the change in regulations.

“Customs recorded over 7,600 individual transactions for people choosing to pay duty, with the total collected in the six months adding to over NZ$1.35m ($933,324).”

Associate Health Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga also welcomed the reduction in the amount of tobacco being brought into New Zealand through its airports.

“The fact that people appear to be aware of the changes to our duty free tobacco limits and accept them is confirmation that our Government’s policies are making a real difference. We are determined to reduce the harm tobacco causes and the cost to our health system.

“The new duty-free tobacco limits, together with tax increases on tobacco sold in New Zealand, are pricing tobacco out of reach of many users. This is reflected in the numbers of smokers giving up tobacco,” he said.

New Zealand changed its regulations on 1 November, 2014 where passengers have had to declare any tobacco over the 50 cigarettes or 50 grams, and either dispose of the excess or pay duty on it. Tobacco sent by mail or cargo also no longer qualifies for a gift allowance.

Heart Foundation proposes licensing tobacco retailers

May 7th, 2015
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/68324829/Heart-Foundation-proposes-licensing-tobacco-retailers

Palmerston North is being challenged to be the first city in New Zealand to licence tobacco retailers, and ban sales at dairies, supermarkets and liquor stores within 1 kilometre of schools.

Heart Foundation Manawatu heart health advocate Sally Darragh told a city council submissions hearing on Tuesday it could introduce a bylaw.

She believed it was empowered to do so under the Local Government Act in the interests of protecting public health.

Darragh said the council had already taken positive action to reduce smoking and the harm caused through tobacco.

She applauded its smokefree outdoor policy and work currently being considered about discouraging smoking outside cafes and bars.

But more was needed in order to reach New Zealand’s goal of a smokefree community where less than 5 per cent of the population smoked by 2025.

If tobacco sales licensing was introduced, it would help ensure retailers were complying with regulations, such as storing tobacco products out of sight and not selling to people aged under 18.

The council could also impose some other restrictions to reduce the availability of tobacco.

Her recommendations were that retailers would pay a fee for their licence, that tobacco could not be sold within 1 kilometre of a school, and could not be sold where alcohol was sold.

Darragh said controlling the supply of tobacco had to be part of the plan to discourage smoking.

“At the moment, it can be sold by anyone. Yet it is a dangerous and addictive drug.”

She said the exclusion zone around schools would discourage teenagers from buying smokes during their breaks, and severing the link between alcohol and smoking would support people trying to quit.

Darragh said licensing would ensure health authorities knew where tobacco was being sold so they could more easily check the rules were adhered to.

It would also provide a meaningful penalty, of losing the licence, if retailers did not comply.

She hoped it would reduce the clustering of tobacco outlets in poor areas where smoking rates tended to be highest.

Darragh said there was no central government move, yet, to consider licensing.

“It would be good to have this council’s leadership. No other councils are considering it.

“You would the first, but I think you are up to it.”

Tobacconist Richard Green, who disputes the claim that smoking causes cancer, said councillors should treat the submission with the disdain it deserved.

He said the exclusion zone around schools, together with a ban for anyone selling alcohol, would affect almost every retailer, dairy and supermarket in the city.

“It’s over the top.”

He said previous moves to hide cigarette displays had made no difference to smoking rates.

Repeated price increases did nothing but see children living in poverty going to school without lunch.

“People will smoke no matter what.”

He said it would drive tobacco sales underground, more people would grow their own, and tourists who smoked would avoid New Zealand.

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