New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance and MyChoice Australia Jointly Issue Ca

The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, and MyChoice Australia have jointly released a report calling on the governments on both sides of the Tasman to legalize and lightly regulate new technologies to help smokers quit.

The report argues that e-cigarettes are a life-saving reform because they can help smokers quit.   E-cigarettes: reducing the harm of smoking. The report can be viewed and downloaded at http://taxpayers.org.nz/e-cigs_report.   Taxpayers’ Union Executive Director Jordan Williams said: “E-cigarettes provide a healthier alternative to traditional cigarettes and mean smokers are not forced to remain the government’s cash cow.” Although the New Zealand government is far ahead of Australia in legalizing this technology, taxing it like traditional cigarettes would undermine the benefits these new products can provide.   “These products offer the only real path for the government to achieve its goal of a smoke-free New Zealand by 2025.”   MyChoice Australia Director Lara Jeffery said: “The evidence is overwhelming: vaping technology will save millions of lives.”   “Millions of smokers worldwide have quit because of this technology, and vaping is now the most popular way for smokers to quit in countries such as the UK. Public health experts around the world have praised it as being ‘at least 95%’ safer than smoking. It is now time for our regulations to keep pace with the times and encourage this life-saving technology,” Ms. Jeffery concluded.