Smoke and Mirrors…Death and Taxes.

As mentioned already, 2017 is going to be a wild wild ride…..AVCA had their first BOT meeting of the year and many good things are coming for the vapers of New Zealand on many different levels from AVCA and VTANZ.  

YET, we still know nothing about the details of the regulation and legalisation of nicotine e liquid as the announcement was postponed from December to sometime in May/June 2017 due to the political upheaval of the PM resigning and the knock on effects…

Which makes it all the more interesting that the same government is evidently allowing PMI to open three stores in New Zealand for marketing the IQOS heat not burn technology.  Oh wait, not as PMI but as “Brand Spanking” (the name of which is fairly ridiculous, but I digress, again, as I tend to do)

A new (to New Zealand) tobacco product being allowed in a country that is trying to limit tobacco consumption under “SmokeFree2025” through the introduction of higher excise and taxes raising the price of combustible tobacco as a means of deterrence to use.

Oh yep, semantics must be the name of the game then. “Heat not Burn” vs. “combustible” and yet (it pains me to admit this mind you) “vaping” of nicotine is not considered a priority to make accessible legally.  

So, to reiterate – the NZ govt has decided to hold off on legalising a scientifically proven 95% less harmful than combustible tobacco product that could save thousands of lives not only from a health standpoint, but a financial standpoint; and yet that same government has allowed the introduction of a new tobacco product to be sold.

I wonder, however patronising this may sound, if any of the people who have allowed this realise that this is the way that Big Tobacco is getting a foothold on “Harm Reduction”.  If they have the stores setup to sell “Heat not Burn” the next step, obviously, will be to market their version of “vapourisation”.  Surely, they realise this.  Surely?  They must, right?   Right?

Or is it, in fact, that the lure of more tobacco tax and excise is more important than true Public Health and TOBACCO harm reduction?  One does wonder, and to be honest, it is NOT a good look.

To be fair, none of the foregoing is to say with impunity that there isn’t a reduction in harm from tobacco by heating and not combustion.  Not at all.   

Where is the science?  The third party objective science and laboratory trials.  You know, like the kind that are out there for vaping and nicotine e liquid?  

How do we know that all the nasty stuff that combustible tobacco is processed with is not in the heat not burn version ?  

Show me the science that proves that heating not combusting tobacco, which may or may not be treated with 4000 chemicals, does not cause all the harms of lighting up?  

Buckle up darlings, we are in for a very bumpy ride methinks.