Richard Edwards of ASPIRE 2025 and Nick Wilson of BODE3 took part in a debate on September 24 organised by LEANZ (Law and Economics Association of New Zealand). The event was held at the offices of Simpson Grierson in Wellington CBD.
Their opponents were Dr Eric Crampton from the New Zealand Initiative and Robin Oliver, a Director at OliverShaw.
The debate focused on discussing the value of health goals in general and the Smokefree Aotearoa goal in particular; and how the Smokefree Aotearoa could be achieved – particularly whether harm reduction policies involving greater availability of alternative nicotine products would be largely sufficient as Eric Crampton and Robin Oliver suggested, or if a comprehensive strategy with synergistic measures such as reducing the appeal, availability, affordability and addictiveness of smoked tobacco would be required, as favoured by Nick Wilson and Richard Edwards.
The slides from our talks are available here:
LEANZ presentation slides (1)
LEANZ presentation slides (2)