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 < Back Alcohol Summit- Why No Tobacco? August 25th 2003 - NSW MLC Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans asks, "Why there is no summit on tobacco? As the Minister for Community Services said at the Alcohol and Young People Breakfast in Parliament House this morning, 'Alcohol is the drug that causes the second most deaths and disease'. She did not mention that Tobacco is number one!" "I note that there is a session with alcohol horror stories. I can tell stories on tobacco-caused deaths also that are just as horrific. Why does no one in this government want to know?" "Tobacco is a totally unnecessary drug that was shown to cause cancer in 1950. 53 years ought to be a long enough phase-in for action! Alcohol, unlike tobacco, may have a safe level of use, yet tobacco is ignored!" "There has now been a summit on illegal drugs and a summit on alcohol. World's best practice would spend about $50 per head per year on Quit programs, but it is at less than $1 in NSW. The government has allowed the Smoke-free Environment Act 2000 to be ignored. At the time the Minister said that if the pubs and clubs did not make a timetable for smoke-free air, it would be imposed on them. Now 3 years later, the Minister is approving a weak voluntary code with no fixed timetable to go smoke-free. The slogan 'Share the Air' was a tobacco-industry slogan for the 1980s. In the 1980s the Health Dept responded to the shared air concept with a campaign of their own; 'Tobacco :Poisons the Air we Share' The Health Minster has gone backwards, and the Premier avoids the issue." "Meanwhile in NSW 12 people a day die of tobacco caused illnesses- 60 while the Premier is tut-tutting on alcohol," concluded Dr Chesterfield-Evans. |
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updated:
October 31, 2003
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