It's one of the world's toughest anti-smoking laws. The Māori see a major flaw

Fri, 3 Nov 2023 04:41:13 +1100

Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>

Andrew Pam
<https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/10/01/1191591336/its-one-of-the-worlds-toughest-anti-smoking-laws-the-m-ori-see-a-major-flaw>

'Teresa Butler started smoking at 8 years old.

Her mother would give her five dollars to go to the shop in Christchurch, New
Zealand, and buy a pack of cigarettes — "then I would buy some lollies with the
change," Butler recounts. At home, her job was simple: Run the lighter and
cigarettes to her mother every hour or whenever she yelled out, " 'Teresa,
bring me my smokes!' "

And she didn't just bring the cigarettes. When grabbing the pack, "I would take
the cigarette out, put it on my mouth, light it and take the cigarette to her.
I knew how to inhale it," Butler says. "She had no idea or didn't care."

Butler doesn't blame her mother for introducing her to tobacco. In the 1980s,
when she was growing up, cigarettes were a way of life, with over half of New
Zealand's indigenous Māori population smoking. Prior to colonization, Māori
were one of the few societies in the world with no history of using tobacco,
alcohol or other intoxicants. That all changed when the Europeans arrived in
the late 1700s.'

Via Frederick Wilson II.

Cheers,
       *** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net               Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/                 Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/            Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/               Manager, Serious Cybernetics

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