Two years ago, when the introduction of photographic health warnings on cigarette packets were announced, a quarter of New Zealanders smoked. Now, almost a year after the graphic reminders of the health risks of smoking appeared on every tobacco product sold in this country, that has dropped to one in five Kiwis.
"It's a huge gain. It equates to 170,000 less smokers," the Ministry of Health's national director of tobacco control, Dr Ashley Bloomfield, said.
"We are pretty confident, but the thing about tobacco control is that it is very hard to attribute specific drops in things like smoking rates to specific interventions; it is the package that matters."
That package has included new advertising campaigns notably one featuring mouth cancer patient Adrian Pilkington.
The substantial number of smokers stubbing out for the last time may not be due solely to the photographs that now dominate cigarette packets, but Bloomfield was convinced they were an effective tool.
"Over the 2007-08 year we saw a big increase in calls to the Quitline, and a 50 per cent increase in registrations with the Quitline. Some of that was driven by web-based registration, but I think that almost certainly that reflects in part that all the packs now have the Quitline number on them.
"The Quitline do a regular survey of users and one of the things they ask is where people have got the Quitline number from, and there was a huge increase in the number of people getting the number from the pack.
"In reading the number you really have to look at the warning as well, and I suspect there is a strong link between the two."
Ben Youdan, director of anti-tobacco group Action on Smoking and Health New Zealand (Ash), agreed that pictorial warnings were having an impact.
It was no accident that smokers who saw graphic and grotesque evidence of what their habit was doing to their health then took action, he said.
"The key to photographs on packs of cigarettes is that every time a smoker smokes, they see the warning," Youdan said.
Ash also has anecdotal evidence that the pictorial warnings are hitting home.
The organisation knows of smokers asking for packs with less disturbing warning pictures.
"That is a definite sign that they are working and that they are making people think about the damage caused by smoking," he said.
"Often you will see people put a lighter or matches over the warnings.
"It may look innocent, but if you look closely people often cover the pictures.
"It's another sign that they are a hard-hitting reminder of the damage they are doing to themselves, and they are reacting to it."
Next month, the images of gangrenous toes, diseased lungs and smoking-damaged hearts will be replaced with rotting teeth and gums, a bleeding brain and a severely clogged artery.
Youdan said the warnings needed to be changed regularly because people got used to them very quickly.
"The evidence we have seen from all over the world is that six months to a year after new tobacco warnings are in place, people get almost desensitised to them. So, it's important you refresh them with new hard-hitting pictures and warnings to keep the message alive."
British and American Tobacco was approached for comment but declined.
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