Fears of tobacco firms’ using Auckland Games

Press, 23 October 1984, Page 24

Fears of tobacco firms’ using Auckland Games

PA Auckland The 1990 Commonwealth Games are in danger of becoming “the marketing vehicle of the decade” for cigarette companies, says the director of the Australian branch of the antismoking group, A.S.H. Mr Steve Woodward, who has been speaking to members of Parliament and doctors on a brief New Zealand visit, said that the sponsorship opportunities the Games presented would be “too good for the companies to miss.” Athletes at the Los Angeles Olympics refused to have their names associated with tobacco sponsorship, he said, and the organising committee of the Commonwealth Games should move to ban cigarette advertising for the event. “You should not worry about not being able to get other sponsors — there will be others. Los Angeles was the most commercial games ever, * but it didn’t need tobacco companies.” Mr Woodward, a former research scientist, said that

the health warnings on cigarette packets in New Zealand were “pathetic.” “Most reasonable countries have them on the front of the packet; yours is on the side, and the warning is so watered down it means nothing.” New Zealand was also trailing the world by scrapping legislation against' selling cigarettes to minors, he said. “New Zealand is the only developed country without such a law.” But New Zealand led the world in providing census statistics on smoking, he said.

“It provides an irrefutable base of knowledge -while other countries have to rely on other surveys.” The Mayor of Auckland, Mrs Cath Tizard, one of the team who helped push the city’s case for the Games, said that local A.S.H. members had already given her their views on the potential involvement of tobacco companies. Their submissions had been sent to the board of control governing the Games. Mrs Tizard, who is also a vice-president of A.S.H., said its views should be considered “very seriously indeed”.