As mentioned earlier
As mentioned earlier, non-physical structural resources also include legislation and policy which can impact the prevalence of smoking in a population. Tobacco and cigarette manufacturers have several attempts to change the laws and policies related to smoking to increase their selling and their profits. For example, in the1990s in the US, the tobacco industry has an effective process to change policies in smoking which is the employment of lobbyists in each state legislature who were skilled at promoting the tobacco industry’s interests through behind the scenes strategies (Givel ; Glantz, 2003). This can explain the increase in the prevalence of cigarette smoking in the youth in the US from 27.5% in 1991 to 36.4% in 1997 (CDC, 1997). Also, when NZ government introduced legislation for standardized cigarette packaging, big tobacco companies denied the logic of this move and claim that standardized packaging will not decrease tobacco smoking but will increase illegal smuggling of cigarettes (Stuff, 2016). Moreover, many tobacco companies threatened to sue the NZ Government if it applied legislation for plain tobacco packs, and these threats of lawsuits helped delay the legislation by at least three years (Scoop, 2018).
Health advocacy groups also influence the policymaking related to smoking, by changing the legislation of tobacco. For instance, in NZ, an independent M?ori tobacco control agency called Te Reo Marama M?ori developed the idea of NZ being tobacco-free by 2025, and it has a significant role in fighting the tobacco industry companies (Gifford, 2009). In 2006, it started a media campaign involved a “Maori Murder” poster which focuses on the tobacco industry, and it blames tobacco companies for killing Maori people (Waikato Times, 2006).
Moreover, in 2016, Anti-smoking groups National Urban Maori Authority and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) have attempted to force the government in increasing the tobacco tax to 20 percent, to decrease the consumption of tobacco especially in low-income groups (NZ Herald, 2016). Furthermore, in 2003, anti-smoking groups have accused of using Health Ministry money to lobby, as the ministry revealed that it paid $2.1 million to three anti-smoking groups, in which part of this funding enabled these groups to lobby members of parliament to support a smoking ban (The Dominion Post, 2003). Therefore, it is evident that different lobby groups impact the legislation of smoking.
