{"id":10722,"date":"2024-07-18T05:37:45","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T17:37:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=10722"},"modified":"2024-07-18T05:37:45","modified_gmt":"2024-07-17T17:37:45","slug":"nz-first-minister-casey-costello-orders-50-cut-to-excise-tax-on-heated-tobacco-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=10722","title":{"rendered":"NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Associate Health Minister Casey Costello has cut the excise tax on Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs), as she aims to make them more attractive as an alternative to smoking.<\/p>\n<p>Costello, who is also Customs Minister, has cut the excise rate on HTPs by 50 percent effective from 1 July &#8211; a move silently dropped on the Customs website.<\/p>\n<p>Costello refused to be interviewed by RNZ but a spokesman said she had made the move to reduce the cost of the products to encourage smokers to switch to safer alternatives.<\/p>\n<p>But Janet Hoek, a Professor of Public Health at the University of Otago, told RNZ that the move seemed weighted in favour of the tobacco industry.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Certainly that is something that tobacco companies would have been keen to see happen,&#8221; Hoek said. &#8220;This is not advice that is coming from the Ministry (of Health). It certainly seems to be advice that is suiting tobacco industry interests.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tobacco giant Philip Morris owns a leading brand in the HTP market, the IQOS, where sticks of tobacco are inserted into a device and heated, rather than burned.<\/p>\n<p>Philip Morris has lobbied for a cut to the excise tax on HTPs, telling the Tax Working Group in 2018 that the government should &#8220;establish a tax rate for heated tobacco products significantly below the tax rate&#8221; for tobacco.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement to RNZ Costello said that vaping had been a successful quit-smoking tool and she wanted to see whether HTPs would also be a useful cessation device.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Vaping does not work for everyone and some attempting to quit have tried several times. HTPs have a similar risk profile to vapes and they are currently legally available, so we are testing what impact halving excise on those products makes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div class=\"photo-captioned photo-captioned-full photo-cntr eight_col \"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.rnztools.nz\/rnz\/image\/upload\/s--8CiBd47q--\/ar_16:10,c_fill,f_auto,g_auto,q_auto,w_1050\/v1643688132\/4ODINDE_copyright_image_110075?_a=BACCd2AD\" alt=\"HEETS are tobacco sticks or refills that are heated in an electronic device, rather than burned like a traditional cigarette.\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\"><span class=\"caption\">There is no evidence that Heated Tobacco Products help people to quit smoking, the Ministry of Health says.\u00a0<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Photo:\u00a0123RF<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Documents released by the Ministry of Health show Costello also asked for advice on liberalising the regulation of HTPs but it was opposed to the idea.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There is no evidence to support their use as a quit smoking tool,&#8221; ministry officials told her. &#8220;We do not recommend liberalising the way HTPs are promoted. This would likely compound existing concerns about youth uptake and addiction to nicotine products.<\/p>\n<p>rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associate Health Minister Casey Costello has cut the excise tax on Heated Tobacco Products (HTPs), as she aims to make them more attractive as an alternative to smoking. Costello, who is also Customs Minister, has cut the excise rate on HTPs by 50 percent effective from 1 July &#8211; a move silently dropped on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10724,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10722\/revisions\/10724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}