The anti-smoking lobby group ASH New Zealand Inc. (“ASH”), a registered charity with the Charities Commission, has vowed to bring the Tobacco Industry “out of the shadows”  by “holding them to account”.  ASH [“Action on Smoking and Health”] – will continue its “attack” on the industry’s appalling record of having been responsible for causing the deaths of about 5,000New Zealanders per year, and expose how some of the industry’s sales reps are “targetting” many young vulnerable Maori and Polynesian girls. It also intends to continue its vigorous campaign against NZ retailers who it accuses of deliberately “enticing” children and young persons into taking up smoking through their immoral retail advertising of the “dangerous, deadly and addictive” product – tobacco.

ASH lobby group spokesperson Mr Ben Youdan has revealed in an interview on TVNZ that in response to anti-smoking lobby groups’ “targetting” of the Tobacco Industry, the industry has  issued “threats” of “law suits” with more anticipated – to be expected he implied – from an industry that “won’t take it [their attacks] lying down”. Attacks on the industry by lobby groups – even if they are registered charities and receive extensive government funding, as does charity-lobby group ASH ($592,892 in 2010/11: see below), are not taken kindly by Tobacco industry barons whose livelihoods are seen to be under threat from the zealous lobbyists. [Read more…]