Sweetener in Maori Affairs smoking ban

Press, 15 August 1988, Page 2

Sweetener in Maori Affairs smoking ban

By

JANE ENGLAND

Maori affairs reporter

Maori Affairs Department staff in Christchurch, faced with giving up day-time smoking after a total ban, may be chewing sweets management supplied rather than going “cold turkey?

Departmental staff recently took a vote and decided on a smoking ban. A senior executive cultural officer in the department and a Public Service Association delegate, Mr Hapi Winiata, said the decision was reached by majority vote. Half the departmental staff are smokers. Mr Winiata said the decision gave impetus to many smokers who wished to give up the habit. The management had made an oral agreement to pay for sweets that might ease the reformed staff through withdrawal symptoms, he

said. It was hoped that the ban would encourage Maori people to give up smoking. “Our priority is health; that is uppermost in our minds. Smoking is one of the main reasons for a lot of health problems for our people.” Mr Winiata’s words echo findings in “Hauora,” a report on Maori standards of health. It found that respiratory diseases were between double and three times higher in Maori people. The report also recorded disproportionate rates of lung, cervix and stomach cancer in Maori women, in spite of a general im-

provement in Maori health. Mr Winiata said he hoped that the department’s decision to ban smoking would give an incentive to other offices and help to improve the health standards of all New Zealanders. The department’s offices had been operating under a partial ban for 18 months, but the workers decided that a partial ban was not enough. Smoking has also been banned at the Health, Justice, and Social Welfare departments, the Rural Bank, and the Housing Corporation.