PHANZ POLICY WEBINAR – PROFESSOR JANET HOEK

PHANZ Policy Position Statement - Oral Tobacco and Nicotine Products

In this webinar, Professor Janet Hoek discusses oral tobacco and nicotine products, including patterns of uptake, and broader public health implications of their use.

Janet is a professor of public health at the University of Otago, Wellington. Janet co-directs ASPIRE Aotearoa, a University of Otago Research Centre, and Te Tupu o te Harakeke, a Health Research Council (HRC) programme. Her work focuses on tobacco control and has explored on-pack smoking warnings and plain packaging, endgame measures including denicotinisation, reducing tobacco availability, and the smokefree generation policy.

This webinar is supporting the release of the PHANZ’s policy position statement on Oral Tobacco and Nicotine Products, which opposes the sale of Oral Tobacco and Nicotine products until robust, independent evidence shows they are genuinely safe and effective.

The policy position statement notes that while oral tobacco and nicotine products are often promoted as safer alternatives to smoking, or tools to reduce harm or help quit smoking, current evidence does not support these claims. Rather, there is a risk that their sale could increase nicotine addiction, worsen health inequities, and create new harms—particularly for rangatahi and Māori.

The recording of the webinar is available on the Feature Webinars section of the PHANZ website.