This Paper is written in preparation for legal action against ASH and the New Zealand Government.

Human Rights Act (1993)

The relevant passages of this act-

Harassment

Harassment can be defined as words, conduct or actions that are frequent and directed at a specific person resulting in that person becoming annoyed, alarmed, or experiencing substantial emotional distress. Harassment is uninvited, unwelcome and undeserved. It can result in the serious interference of an individual's work or study pursuits.

Victimization

Those working in the public sector remain covered by section 66 of the Human Rights Act. Section 66 of the Human Rights Act provides that it shall be unlawful to treat, or to threaten to treat, any other person less favourably:

Smokers have been victimized as a group and each on a personal basis subject to unfair financial pressure and discrimination in both the public arena and the workplace.

The Anti smoking lobby has offered little but second hand opinion on the issue of smoking as argument against smoking. It has done no specific work to pressure cigarette companies to reduce the amount of carcinogenic poisons in manufactured product and makes no distinction between tobacco smoking and manufactured cigarette smoking.
A simple Internet search will reveal studies on nicotine placing it as a poison lethal only in quantities far beyond normal consumption 40 - 60 mg per kg! not 40-60mg . A search will also reveal many efficacy's of tobacco smoking, and nicotine content in particular.
An interesting question is also brought to mind that there are no "content ingrediants" listed on any tobacco products, why is the tobacco industry exempt from this directive for foodstuffs and consumables?
The anti smoking lobby ASH has unduly influenced the workplace view of the smoker, causing much discomfort to many individuals having to brave foul weather and often humiliation at the hands of those enforcing no smoking directives.
Financial punishment appears to have been the "choice of cure" for the smoker along with dehumanising, ridicule and guilt trip advertising, hardly a humane or rational method of treating addiction.
As with any addiction, it has been proven that no amount of punishment will induce the addict into giving up their addiction, if ASH had bothered to research it the financial burden on individual smokers would not have been so extreme over the past 20 years.
The government is complicit to this injustice by way of condoning and passing bills in favour of the anti smoking lobby as it stands to profit enormously by price increases on cigarette and tobacco products knowing full well that people addicted to nicotine are not likely to give up smoking despite the extortionate increases forced upon them.
The government is also complicit in fueling discriminatory distaste and hostility towards smokers and not the product in the misinformation fed to the public by way of purposeful discriminatory advertising, tantamount to misuse of public funds.
ASH has led a biased campaign that incites hatred toward individual smokers and suggests blame for effects not supported by rational neutral studies or research.

Pro-Smoking Issues, things they will not tell you as it does not suit their purpose -

The currently available literature indicates that nicotine, on its own, does not promote the development of cancer in healthy tissue and has no mutagenic properties.

The likelihood of birth defects caused by nicotine is believed to be very small or nonexistent.

Advertising that the government has forced tobacco companies to put on their products is not due to nicotine or smoking tobacco.
The increased acetylcholineic activity it causes have been shown to impede apoptosis, which is one of the methods by which the body destroys unwanted cells (programmed cell death). Since apoptosis helps to remove mutated or damaged cells that may eventually become cancerous, it is suggested that the inhibitory actions of smoking creates a more favourable environment for cancer to develop. Thus they only imply that nicotine may play an indirect role in carcinogenesis knowing full well that it is not proven.

Studies indicate that Schizophrenics "self medicate" by smoking.

Recent studies suggest that smokers require less frequent repeated revascularization after percutaneous coronary intervention (angioplasty).

Risk of ulcerative colitis has been frequently shown to be reduced by smokers on a dose-dependent basis; the effect is eliminated if the individual stops smoking.

Smoking also appears to interfere with development of Kaposi's sarcoma, breast cancer among women carrying the very high risk BRCA gene, preeclampsia, and atopic disorders such as allergic asthma.
A plausible mechanism of action in these cases may be nicotine acting as an anti-inflammatory agent, and interfering with the inflammation-related disease process, as nicotine has vasoconstrictive effects.

With regard to neurological diseases, a large body of evidence suggests that the risks of Parkinson's disease or Alzheimer's disease might be twice as high for nonsmokers than for smokers.
A plausible mechanism of action in these cases may be the effect of nicotine, a cholinergic stimulant, in decreasing the levels of acetylcholine in the smoker's brain; Parkinson's disease occurs when the effect of dopamine is less than that of acetylcholine.

Recent studies have indicated that nicotine can be used to help adults suffering from Autosomal dominant nocturnal frontal lobe epilepsy. The same areas that cause seizures in that form of epilepsy are also responsible for processing nicotine in the brain.

Nicotine and its metabolites are being researched for the treatment of a number of disorders, including ADHD and Parkinson's Disease.

The therapeutic use of nicotine as a means of appetite-control and to promote weight loss is anecdotally supported by many ex-smokers who claim to put on weight after quitting.
Studies of nicotine in mice suggests it plays a role in weight-loss that is independent of appetite.
Studies involving the elderly suggest that nicotine affects not only weight loss, but also prevents some weight gain.

Further studies on monoamine oxidase, the "flight response" neural stimulant, also responsible for aggression, is considerably reduced by beta-carboline alkaloids in tobacco smoke. click here to see one of the most convincing and simply understood studies provided by the Spanish Council for Scientific Research.

Proposal for compensation:

That the government admits its implication and the fact it has made a mistake supporting legislation and price increases based on misinformation, and must reverse all present legislation dealing with the unfair treatment and the approach to tobacco smokers.
Together with ASH the government must pay back all advertising costs paid for with New Zealand tax payers money and the ill gained profits through price increases, to smokers by way of reducing the cost of tobacco to a point that each individual smoker may recoup their losses from ten years previous, over a period of the following five years. Taking into account, Tobacco Company demographics can provide, the number of new smokers are likely to smoke in this five years, if this number is predicted to be significant then the payback time must be reduced further in order to proportion the greater amount to historically established smokers.
Also the government must provide reliable unbiased research into the "true" source of cancer causing carcinogens contained in manufactured cigarettes and force tobacco companies to eliminate them from their manufacturing processes.
This anti smoking initiative has been more about profit and the creation of a previously unknown employ for those involved in ASH and less about concern for people or their health or well being.
Self righteous attitudes and opinion being the allowed to over-rule rational and factual evidence, a tool by which deception, profiteering and usury has been thrust upon the New Zealand public not only in this area.

There is also a more sinister implication appearing to be more of a reality as time passes and the treatment of New Zealand citizens becomes more obviously in the nature of a social experiment. We will add this scenario in the near future.