Deltanine

The Maori Party have proposed a bill banning smoking anywhere and a ban on tobacco products, since a third of Maori deaths are due to tobacco. This has effectively exposed the hypocrisy and illogical attitudes from the rest of parliament.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) director Becky Freeman said banning tobacco simply made it an issue for the courts to deal with, rather than keeping it as a health issue.

British American Tobacco spokesman Carrick Graham said he found himself in the unusual position of agreeing with ASH.
"Legitimate tobacco companies could pack up and go away, but then the market would be run by criminal organisations and I think the Maori Party would agree that isn't the best course of action."

Prime Minister Helen Clark, who is stridently anti-smoking, said through a spokesman that she did not support prohibition. She said it would simply criminalise people with an addiction, and she favoured a public health approach to tobacco and addiction.

The fact that these people apply these attitudes selectively to one drug (nicotine) but applying the opposite attitude to a less harmful drug (THC) shows what a confused society it is that we live in.