New Zealand: Roll-your-owns Not ''Healthier''

Source from:  Newswire 02/12/2014

Smoking roll-your-owns isn't healthier than smoking tailor-made cigarettes and thought could be given to banning loose tobacco, a health researcher says.

Professor Richard Edwards, of Otago University's department of public health, has written an opinion piece for the British Medical Journal.

He says the most common reason given in studies - more than 80 per cent - for smoking roll-your-owns is that they are cheaper. However, there is also a perception that they are more "natural" and healthier than tailor-mades.

But Prof Edwards says that perception is false and roll-your-owns could even be more addictive.

In New Zealand, the concentration of additives in loose tobacco is about 18 per cent compared with 0.5 per cent for factory-made cigarettes.

Some of these additives, including sweeteners such as honey, sugar, dextrose, and sorbitol, often at much higher concentrations, potentially make loose tobacco more acceptable to children, he said.

Loose tobacco is cheaper because smokers can roll them thinner and that may help smokers avoid the tax increases which are part of anti-smoking policy.

In some countries, younger people are increasingly turning to loose tobacco and there is a high rate of use among poorer people around the world.

In New Zealand, roll-your-own smokers are more likely to have been diagnosed as having mental health, drug use, and alcohol-related disorders and hazardous drinking patterns.

Prof Edwards suggests that tobacco tax regimes correct differences in tobacco prices, as New Zealand did in 2010.

Another measure might also be to tailor mass media campaigns and pack warnings to "correct misinterpretations" that roll-your-own cigarettes are safer and more natural.

Prof Edwards concludes that a more radical move would be to ban the sale of loose tobacco altogether.

However, law changes increasing tobacco tax each year and reducing supply would probably be a better idea, he said. Enditem