When New Zealand’s new government announced it was scrapping the country’s world-leading tobacco laws, it came as a particularly hard blow to Māori people.
With the Indigenous community having the highest smoking rates, its leaders had fought for reforms for years.
The country’s model was the first to spell a complete end to smoking – and so was hailed by health advocates globally.
From 2024, the laws would have cut nicotine levels in cigarettes to non-addictive levels, eliminated 90% of retailers allowed to sell tobacco, and created “smoke-free” generations of citizens by banning cigarette sales to anyone born after 2008. But with the measures now abandoned, Māori stand to lose the most, advocates say.
Last year, Teresa Butler and her six-year-old daughter sat in front of a room full of politicians, begging them to enact the laws.
Dressed in a traditional feathered cloak, her voice quavered as she thrust a photo of her mother at the committee. She presented the death certificate.
Cause of death: Emphysema, the result of more than 30 years of tobacco smoking.