A leaked document, presumably from within the Ministry of Health, along with numerous OIA documents, has blown the lid off a cosy relationship between so-called health advocates in New Zealand and a major American tobacco company, 22nd Century Group.
This outfit, with deep roots in the tobacco industry, has been quietly positioning itself to corner the market on very low nicotine cigarettes, all while local scientists and activists push policies that would effectively hand them a monopoly. The document exposes how academics from groups like ASPIRE Aotearoa have amplified the company’s products in research and media, despite their public stance against Big Tobacco.
The document outlines:
- Professor Richard Edwards and Professor Janet Hoek (ASPIRE 2025, University of Otago) held at least two formal meetings with 22nd Century Group Vice-President John Pritchard in 2022–2023, including an in-person meeting at the University of Otago Wellington offices on 24 March 2023.
- Meeting notes explicitly discuss 22nd Century supplying denicotinised cigarettes to New Zealand, distribution options and whether meetings would remain “appropriate” if legacy tobacco companies were involved in selling 22nd Century products.
- ASPIRE 2025’s own public policy bans anyone affiliated with tobacco companies from their events – yet they rolled out the red carpet for 22nd Century.
- Janet Hoek went on RNZ in March 2024 demanding ‘hard questions’ about government compliance with FCTC Article 5.3 because Shane Jones met with a tobacco company staff member in public.
- In July 2025 Hoek publicly called for Prime Minister Luxon to strip NZ First of the tobacco portfolio over “alleged links to tobacco giants”.
By Janet Hoek’s standards, she should remove herself from any involvement in tobacco control. She has met with a big tobacco company and advocated for their product. She and her colleagues pushed then Health Minister Ayesha Verrall to adopt a product standard that would exclusively allow them to sell cigarettes in New Zealand.
The leaked report shows health advocates pushing 22nd Century products via their media channels:
The leaked document outlines the New Zealand market and the connections between 22nd Century and health advocates.
Official Information Act documents also show Professor Richard Edwards and Professor Janet Hoek (ASPIRE 2025, University of Otago) held at least two formal meetings with 22nd Century Group Vice-President John Pritchard in 2022–2023, including an in-person meeting at the University of Otago Wellington offices on 24 March 2023.
Associate Minister of Health Casey Costello should be demanding a report from her ministry answering the following questions:
- Who are 22nd Century and what are their products?
- Why have Otago University academics advocated for these products?
- Why are Otago University academics treated as oracles when, by their own standards, they have sold out to big tobacco?
- Why were the same conflicted academics recommended for a ministerial advisory group and why was the minister not informed of these conflicts?
Grant Robertson, now Vice Chancellor of Otago University, should be demanding answers too. Why are his academics meeting with and advocating on behalf of a big tobacco company, while attacking MPs for taking meetings with similar companies? That has to make it harder for him to advocate on behalf of the university when he is seeking funds from government.
The Otago academics should lose their public funding and get off their moral high horse because they have sold out New Zealanders to big tobacco. They should be sacked from any government positions, including ministerial advisory groups because they cannot promote a product while denigrating others for doing the same thing.
And the minister should be demanding hard answers from a ministry that has repeatedly stitched her up throughout her tenure. They seem to think that the minister is an impediment to their setting policy, rather than being the duly elected representative the public have trusted to make decisions on their behalf.
More to come.
If other journalists would like the source documents then please contact me and I will make them available.
