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Speaker 1: Elicit tobacco sales booming business. Organized crime groups are using

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Speaker 1: things like Facebook marketplace to sell. We know this because

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Speaker 1: we've got new research this morning from the tobacco industry

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Speaker 1: that now claims as much as a quarter of all

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Speaker 1: cigarettes in this country are sourced illegally. Chris Bullen, Auckland University,

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Speaker 1: professor of public health, is with us on this Chris,

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Speaker 1: morning to you morning. Do you believe it?

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Speaker 2: No? I don't, okay. I mean, I think there is

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Speaker 2: a problem with illegal tobacco, but I don't think it's

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Speaker 2: as great it's been claimed in the slatest report.

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Speaker 1: So the report would be from tobacco. They want to

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Speaker 1: paint a worst picture to sort of stir the pop

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Speaker 1: do something about it, presumably, So you don't think that's real.

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Speaker 2: No. In fact, another Tobacco Industry Commission report just in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, so it was one in eight. So

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Speaker 2: who do you believe? Yeah, exactly. We think that's probably

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Speaker 2: somewhere between five and ten percent.

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Speaker 1: Okay, is that bad? Is it getting worse?

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Speaker 2: There are going to be bursts of activity out there,

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Speaker 2: and customs I think has received additional funding to boost

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Speaker 2: fair capacity to detect at the border, othersit tobacco shipments.

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Speaker 2: So I think it's quite hard to know from one

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Speaker 2: year to the other whether it's getting better or worse.

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Speaker 1: To ask they've got that research your view, Do we

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Speaker 1: actually have a handle on what it is or we're

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Speaker 1: just sort of making this up as we go along.

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Speaker 2: Well, we're not making it up, and I think we're

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Speaker 2: getting better and monitoring it. So we've now undertaken two

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Speaker 2: ways of monitoring for the Ministry of Health, and they

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Speaker 2: suggest looking back over ten years of information. At one

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Speaker 2: aspect has looked at a decade information it's just stable

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Speaker 2: or declining slightly. Other it's tricky to get a handle

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Speaker 2: on illegal activity, as you can imagine. The Facebook monitoring,

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Speaker 2: Facebook Marketplace violshing is interesting because whoever's selling these products,

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Speaker 2: whether it's organized crime or just individuals, they're using these

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Speaker 2: platforms now to advertise quite brazenly products. But they are

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Speaker 2: tricky because they keep changing what they're calling them. So

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Speaker 2: we've got a've got a person part time who's fluent

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Speaker 2: in two or three languages, who's monitoring that.

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Speaker 1: Does anyone else monitor It's funny you should say that

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Speaker 1: I'm just a tech dinosaur, But kids were selling cars,

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Speaker 1: you know, and they go. You never go to Facebook Marketplace.

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Speaker 1: It's just full of crocs. Is that true?

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Speaker 2: Well, there's obviously good people on Facebook Marketplace, but there

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Speaker 2: are criminal elements out there for sure, selling things that

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Speaker 2: are illegal to sell in New Zealand, or doing breaching,

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Speaker 2: breaching the current rules and trying to bend the rules.

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Speaker 2: But they're doing it in other ways. And you know,

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Speaker 2: Tom meenity markets and construction sites. I walk through parts

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Speaker 2: of New Market every morning on my journey to walk work,

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Speaker 2: and I see Chinese tobacco packets discarded in the gutters

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Speaker 2: that are non compliant with our rules.

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Speaker 1: So there is My next question, is the tobacco that's

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Speaker 1: coming in here at tobacco or is it branded stuff

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Speaker 1: from offshore?

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Speaker 2: Well, as far as we can tell, most of it

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Speaker 2: comes in as branded products from offshore.

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Speaker 1: And it's obviously worthwhile if you as part of this

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Speaker 1: being driven ages simply by criminal activity for the sake

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Speaker 1: of it. Or has it got to the point where

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Speaker 1: the people who will not give up smoking the tax

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Speaker 1: is too high and if they can get it cheaper

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Speaker 1: they will, Well.

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Speaker 2: I think both things. There is the supply demand issue,

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Speaker 2: So the biggest thing the government should do, I believe,

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Speaker 2: apart from making sure that borders are tight, is to

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Speaker 2: reduce the demand for smoking. Through all the tobacco control

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Speaker 2: activity that we knew should have been going on but

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Speaker 2: was repealed, and then trying to continue to drive it down.

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Speaker 2: It is coming down, and as demand drops, so demand

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Speaker 2: for illegal tobacco should drop.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. Chris presci out very much, Professor Chris bourm

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Speaker 1: Auckland University. For more from The mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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