The kind, caring tobacco companies

Written By: - Date published: 11:51 am, December 14th, 2022 - 15 comments
Categories: health - Tags: , ,

Kim Hill slays tobacco company PR guy in this 7 minute interview, and doesn’t even break a sweat. She’s quite unfair, but rightly so.

The question she didn’t ask is “why do you care?”. TCPRG says the new government Bill will cause many smokers to go cold turkey and have detrimental impacts on the community. But if you sell a product that you know harms people and you know is addictive, why would you care about other aspects of well-being?

As opposed to profits for instance. It’s all just another round of untrustworthy, opportunistic, PR bullshit from an industry with one of the worst records for truth or contributing to the welfare of society.

15 comments on “The kind, caring tobacco companies ”

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  1. Corey Humm 1
    14 December 2022 at 12:24 pm

    It's 2022 and cigarette companies are telling us they care about us lol

    Good grief. I quit smoking a couple of years ago and really really really enjoy having my taste and smell back (though when visiting my family in east Christchurch after the sewage plant set on fire u could have done without my sense of smell)

    It'd be good to one day see the back of these scummy death lobbiests.

    This kinda reminds me of how Samsung and Apple and their fanboys tell us they've stopped putting wall charger points in their phones because they "care about the environment" when in reality they just don't want you giving your phone to a friend or family member and want you to use more carbon to buy a separate box with a charger inside to power their unsustainable environmentally damaging phones built with depleting precious metals and from slave labour… But the media never calls them out!!

    Phones should be made to be upgradable and last many years if we're serious about climate change.

  2. lprent 2
    14 December 2022 at 1:51 pm

    The thing that I got from this yesterday with the article about a possible British Americian Tobacco legal challenge was that they didn't have the proof to hand about the volumes of nicotine in their vaping products.

    A recent study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR) revealed nicotine levels in New Zealand vaping liquid products could be significantly different from what’s promised on the label.

    In a letter to the Ministry of Health, dated November 25, 2022, Bell Gully told Safarti that BAT wanted an urgent meeting with the director-general of health herself, or the Vaping Regulatory Authority, to discuss the regulations around nicotine salts, and ask for an extension to the review due to the “large volume of technical information” requested.

    It also referred to another letter, sent to Verrall on November 23, which shows 10 industry signatories outlining a case against the product review, claiming the Vaping Regulatory Authority is “asserting a new interpretation of what constitutes nicotine salt”.

    The Vaping Regulatory Authority responded to the letters on December 6, saying at this stage, it “does not consider a meeting on the matters raised to be strictly necessary for effective regulation.”

    It seems that regulations are clear, but not the testing technique being used by nicotine pushers. But who is the hell doesn’t have a full chemical analysis of a manufactured liquid immediately to hand? Don’t they know how to do a basic chemical analysis? If not, thhe they shouldn’t be allowed to manufacture of import because they’re incompetent at the task

    Vapes can legally have up to 20mg/mL for freebase nicotine or 50mg/mL for nicotine salts, but there are cases where the latter has been interpreted as 50 milligrams of nicotine.

    I haven't used vapes, but based on the volumes of steam I see being expelled from car windows – I'd say that there are quite a few milli-litres of liquid in each exhalation.

    I would say that the onus is on the nicotine pushers to prove that they conform to the actual existing regulations rather than what they would like those regulations to read for the benefit of their profit margins.

  3. Cricklewood 3
    14 December 2022 at 2:17 pm

    Only thing I don't understand re smoking / vapes is why people seem to think prohibition of an incredibly addictive substance will be effective.

    • Scott 3.1
      14 December 2022 at 2:52 pm

      I forsee a future where we will be lobbying the government to legalise or decriminalise tobacco. On the basis that it would take distribution away from the gangs – and profits could be taxed for the benefit of society.

      Then we could have an amnesty for all those with tobacco convictions

      • weka 3.1.1
        14 December 2022 at 6:05 pm

        I forsee a future where fuck all people smoke tobacco.

        • Cricklewood 3.1.1.1
          14 December 2022 at 8:23 pm

          I'm not sure, there's already a pretty substantial blackmarket in Auckland. Also we've got mountains of kids hooked on nicotine via vapes now.

          It's weird half of us have accepted that prohibition of cannabis is dumb and doesn't work but now we are going to go down that path with tobacco and plenty of those same people think it's going to work? They dreaming, Nicotine is so damn addictive.

          • weka 3.1.1.1.1
            15 December 2022 at 8:50 am

            yeah the management of vaping has been insane. Afaik health authorities early on took the view that it was better for people to shift from cigarettes to vapes because vapes were less harmful. They should have just banned them and put the supports in place for people to quit cigarettes. Serious supports.

            Cannabis and smoking are analogs. Cannabis isn't physically addictive. While there are definitely people who self medicate and have psychological addictions, many people use cannabis recreationally in the same way as alcohol.

            Very few people use cigarettes this was, most people are addicted physically and then by definition they are self medicating. It's true that cigarette smoking is also deeply social, but that's a behavioural change that we could have worked on.

            NZ has been pretty successful at reducing smoking over the past 30 years. We're not doing an outright prohibition, we're gradually making it harder to smoke by restricting supply and sale. Afaik smoking or possession won't be illegal. People can still grow their own.

            The failing will be in not addressing why people smoke even when it's very difficult to buy or afford. Stress and poverty are in the too hard basket, but they don't have to be.

        • Scott 3.1.1.2
          14 December 2022 at 8:25 pm

          Me too Weka. I see a future where fuck all people ingest carcinogens voluntarily.

    • Craig H 3.2
      14 December 2022 at 8:50 pm

      The law allows people to continue to grow their own, so while it's very hard to completely avoid a black market, that at least would keep it in check.

  4. Peter 4
    14 December 2022 at 3:46 pm

    After the election will Chris Bishop be the Minister of Tobacco and Vaping?

  5. Robert Guyton 5
    15 December 2022 at 11:20 am

    That interview! I've listened twice.

    Essential listening!

    Hugely entertaining!

    Kim is Queen!