Impossible until implemented: New Zealand shows the way

The past 50 years have seen many developments in tobacco that we now take for granted but were once unthinkable. In those earlier days, smoking was permitted almost everywhere—restaurants, workplaces, schools and even the WHO’s Geneva headquarters. Tobacco advertising pervasive enticing. Cigarette packs glossy. Public education relied on occasional posters leaflets. Health warnings insipid. Cigarettes taxed—but not at levels to cause manufacturers discomfort. A major airline’s response a 1970s survey assured one of us (MD) restrictions aircraft technically impossible. Among governments, Cornford’s dictum about academe dominated—‘Every public action which is customary, either wrong, or, if it right, dangerous precedent. It follows nothing should ever be done first time’.1 The epidemic still with us, fuelled by counterattacks from resurgent industry—but there has also been remarkable progress, showing art possible. And an important lesson learnt while measures recommended health authorities are attacked derided industry its allies as impossible, illegal, ineffective, unworkable counterproductive, successfully introduced country or state they can recognised best practise speedily implemented elsewhere. Tobacco seemed untouchable. Then 1973 Norway legislated ad ban, taking effect 1975. …