Most endangered species
Māori are this country's native species and we're endangered because we are the people most affected by tobacco. Smoking is killing Māori, slowly, quietly and legally.
There wasn't even a word to describe smoking in Te Reo. Over the last 200 years, smoking has become such a big part of Māori life that 47% of adults smoke daily and leads to 31% of all Māori deaths.
It threatens the continuation of our whakapapa, leadership and tikanga through the generations.
Tobacco company people don't smoke themselves and they don't care if we do. They make heaps of money from people who smoke, and we pay for it with our lives and the lives of our whānau.
You want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth?
'We don't smoke this shit, but we sell it.....We reserve the right to sell to young, poor, black and stupid.'
A direct quotation from testimony given under oath to the U.S. Congress by a former cigarette model, David Garlitz, former 'Winston' promoter, repeating what one tobacco executive from the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company answered when asked if he smoked.
Makes you angry, aye?
