Quitline is a phone line and a website which helps people who are trying to quit smoking. In the first week of this new year, 1685 people signed up to quit smoking. This is 100 more than last year and probably because of the increase in the price of cigarettes. The tax on tobacco products increased by 10% this year and will increase again next year as the government tries to encourage smokers to quit. For a smoker who smokes one pack of 20 cigarettes a day, the cost is more than $5,000 a year.
In two hospital boards, midwives and counsellors are giving pregnant women petrol vouchers each week they do not smoke. This has been more successful than just telling women about the effects on their baby if they smoke. Mothers who are smokers are more likely to have a stillbirth where the baby is born dead. Other babies are often very small at birth or may develop health problems. Mothers know this but it is not easy to quit smoking, especially if the rest of the family smoke.
In the Waikato health board area, one half of all pregnant Maori women are smokers. Tariana Turia, who was co-leader of the Maori Party, has worked hard to encourage Maori people to quit smoking. She showed how children copy their parents. Parents are usually shocked to see their young child smoking.
It is also more difficult to smoke in public places now. It is illegal to smoke indoors at work or in a restaurant, café or hotel. It is illegal to smoke anywhere near a school.
Vocabulary
• quit – stop, give up
• voucher – paper which can be used for free petrol
• midwife, midwives (pl) – specially trained nurses who deliver babies
• stillbirth – still here means not moving; a stillbirth is the birth of a baby who is not alive