This leak exposes a rotten core in New Zealand’s tobacco control scene, where hypocrisy reigns and public health takes a back seat to agendas.
A leaked document, presumably from within the Ministry of Health has revealed a web of undisclosed contacts, selective engagements and apparent conflicts of interest involving prominent academics at Otago University’s ASPIRE Aotearoa research centre. Key figures like Professors Janet Hoek and Richard Edwards, who publicly decry any tobacco industry influence under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), have been caught engaging with an American tobacco company, 22nd Century Group, while shunning others.
This engagement appears to promote very-low nicotine content (VLNC) cigarettes, a product that keeps all the harmful chemicals in burned tobacco but removes nicotine – the one chemical that is not inherently harmful.
Despite millions in taxpayer funding from the Health Research Council, these academics pushed policies that would effectively create a monopoly for 22nd Century Group, a Nasdaq-listed tobacco firm, in New Zealand’s market. Their actions contradict ASPIRE’s own policy against working with tobacco affiliates, raising questions about why health advocates would champion a genetically modified Big Tobacco product over safer, burn-free alternatives like vaping or nicotine replacement therapies.
This hypocrisy extends to media manipulation, with allies in outlets like Stuff and ThreeNews running stories that smear rivals while ignoring ASPIRE’s own industry dalliances, as evidenced by a recent Broadcasting Standards Authority ruling against such biased reporting.
Timeline of Events
2003–2005: New Zealand signs and ratifies the WHO FCTC, including Article 5.3, which mandates protecting tobacco policies from industry interference. Otago University, as a public entity, is bound by this. (WHO FCTC Article 5.3 guidelines)
2015: Auckland University’s Chris Bullen and others use 22nd Century Group’s VLNC cigarettes in New Zealand research trials. Critics note subjects compensated by smoking more intensely, undermining claims of reduced harm. (Prev Med criticism)
2016: Otago’s Janet Hoek, Andrew Waa, and Richard Edwards secure $1.18 million in Health Research Council (HRC) funding for Māori smoking research. A study co-authored by Edwards, Hoek, Bullen and US researchers Eric Donny and Dorothy Hatsukami (long-time 22nd Century collaborators) promotes VLNC cigarettes, citing no industry role despite using their products. (Study on reducing nicotine content)
2017: Otago’s ASPIRE 2025 publishes an action plan advocating mandated nicotine reduction, echoing 22nd Century’s business model. Dr Ayesha Verrall, then at Otago Wellington, is a contemporary of key figures like Diana Sarfati. (Otago’s smokefree plan)
2018: Another Otago study uses 22nd Century’s VLNC cigarettes to test demand elasticity. (Study on VLNC demand)
2019: Hoek and team secure $4.9 million HRC funding for smokefree disparities research, plus $1.19 million for roll-your-own tobacco strategies. (HRC funding announcements)
2020: Verrall enters politics as a Labour MP, becomes associate health minister overseeing tobacco control and 22nd Century’s SEC filings confirm it as a tobacco products company manufacturing combustibles. (22nd Century SEC filing)
2021: Ministry of Health consultation mirrors ASPIRE’s VLNC advocacy and 22nd Century publicly supports New Zealand’s reduced nicotine plans. (22nd Century press release)
November 2022: 22nd Century contacts Ministry of Health (declared under FCTC 5.3) but via a third party, reaches Edwards at ASPIRE, who shares pre-print articles and involves Hoek and Waa.
December 2022: Legislation passes mandating 0.8mg/g nicotine limit from April 2025, plus retailer caps, aligning with ASPIRE’s platform but benefitting 22nd Century as the primary VLNC supplier. (Smokefree Environments Act amendments) Zoom meeting between Edwards, Hoek, and 22nd Century’s John Pritchard.
January 2023: Edwards emails sharing denicotinisation research with 22nd Century.
March 2023: In-person meeting at Otago’s Wellington office with Edwards and Pritchard; Hoek joins via Zoom. Discussions cover distribution and rejecting legacy companies as partners. Edwards notes 22nd Century as a “very different” tobacco company despite FCTC definitions.
March 2024: Hoek criticises NZ ministers’ tobacco interactions on Radio NZ, demanding FCTC compliance. (Radio NZ interview)
May 2024: Hoek praises Verrall’s Tobacco Transparency Bill as “long overdue” to stop industry influence. (Otago support for bill)
2024: Hoek, Waa and team secure another $4.99 million HRC grant for endgame research, despite repeal of key measures, plus $1.17 million for youth vaping. (HRC funding success)
July 2024: Stuff and ThreeNews run stories alleging ASH links to pro-vaping lobbies. Broadcasting Standards Authority later rules them unfair, inaccurate and unbalanced. (BSA ruling)
November 2024: The coalition government repeals VLNC mandates and retailer reductions. (Repeal legislation)
2025: ASPIRE hosts webinar on tobacco interference, with Hoek and Waa as panellists, criticising New Zealand’s slipped global ranking. (Global Tobacco Interference Index)
If there is one thing that gets my blood boiling, it is the sight of taxpayer-funded academics playing both sides of the fence while pretending to be holier than thou. Here we have a bunch of self-proclaimed guardians of public health at Otago University, specifically the ASPIRE Aotearoa crew, who have spent years railing against the tobacco industry like it is the devil incarnate. They have got policies on their website banning any engagement with tobacco companies or their affiliates, even kicking them out of seminars and webinars (ASPIRE policy). Yet, according to this bombshell leak from inside the Ministry of Health, these same people have been cosying up to an American Big Tobacco outfit called 22nd Century Group, swapping emails, sharing research and holding secret meetings all while pushing policies that would hand this company a virtual monopoly on New Zealand’s cigarette market.
Let us start with the stars of this show: Professors Janet Hoek and Richard Edwards. Hoek, who scooped up the 2022 Critic and Conscience of Society Award for her supposed fearless tobacco control work (Otago award announcement), and Edwards, her co-director at ASPIRE, have positioned themselves as the untouchable voices of Smokefree purity. They bang on about the WHO FCTC’s Article 5.3, which demands governments and public entities shield policies from tobacco vested interests (FCTC details). Hoek has been quoted slamming politicians for even talking to tobacco reps, calling for “higher standards of disclosure and transparency” in May 2025. Edwards, in his emails, admits 22nd Century is a tobacco company but dismisses it as “very different” because it fits their agenda. Hypocrisy does not even begin to cover it.
What is this agenda? It boils down to very-low nicotine content cigarettes, or VLNCs. These academics have been pumping out studies and advocacy for years, funded by over $15 million in HRC grants since 2016 (HRC funding for Otago tobacco research), pushing for laws that mandate slashing nicotine in all smoked tobacco to near-zero levels. Sounds noble until you realise VLNCs remove nicotine, the addictive but non-carcinogenic bit, while leaving in all the tar, carcinogens and toxins that actually kill people. Why on earth would health advocates champion a product that is still burned tobacco and genetically modified to boot, when there are burn-free options like vaping, nicotine patches or gums that deliver nicotine without the combustion horrors? Critics have long pointed out that low-nicotine cigs might just make smokers puff harder, inhaling more toxins (Criticism of VLNC policy).
And here is the kicker: only one major player makes these VLNC cigarettes at scale, 22nd Century Group, a self-described tobacco products company in its SEC filings, complete with contract manufacturing for conventional cigs (22nd Century SEC filing). Their “Spectrum” research cigarettes have been the go-to for studies by Donny and Hatsukami, influential US researchers whose work fed into New Zealand advocacy. Otago studies in 2015, 2016 and 2018 used 22nd Century products and, by 2022, the company was knocking on doors here. While they declared contact with the Ministry, the leak shows they went through a third party to hook up with Edwards, who roped in Hoek and Waa. Emails reveal multiple exchanges, a December 2022 Zoom and a March 2023 in-person meet at Otago’s Wellington office, discussing distribution and rejecting “legacy” tobacco firms as partners. Edwards even shared pre-print denicotinisation papers in January 2023.
This is not some benign chat over tea. These meetings happened as Labour’s Smokefree laws, passed in December 2022, set a 0.8mg/g nicotine cap from April 2025, perfectly tailored to 22nd Century’s tech. Modelling cited by ASPIRE suggested this would slash smoking fastest (ASPIRE modelling). But who benefits? A foreign Big Tobacco firm poised to supply the market, potentially creating a monopoly since no other company has the patented low-nicotine tobacco ready. Concerns about this have bubbled up, with critics warning it hands power to one player (Monopoly concerns).
The hypocrisy peaks when you see how ASPIRE and allies treat others. They slammed the coalition for repealing the laws in 2024, calling it a setback (Repeal criticism), yet their own undeclared chats with 22nd Century violate the FCTC spirit they preach. Media allies ran hit pieces on groups like ASH in July 2024, alleging vaping ties, but the BSA smacked down Stuff and ThreeNews for inaccuracy and bias (BSA ruling on ASH stories). Who seeded those stories? The leak raises eyebrows about coordinated smears to clear the field for VLNCs.
Why push burned tobacco over safer alternatives? Motivation smells like ideology over evidence. These advocates seem fixated on eradication, even if it means partnering with Big Tobacco’s outlier to force smokers into quitting via unappealing cigs. But it ignores real-world harm reduction, where vaping has helped millions switch without combustion risks (Harm reduction critiques). And genetically modified tobacco? That adds another layer of irony for health purists.
Taxpayers deserve answers. Why has HRC poured millions into research that props up one company’s monopoly? Why the selective blindness to FCTC breaches? Hoek and Edwards need to explain their “very different” tobacco pals. This leak exposes a rotten core in New Zealand’s tobacco control scene, where hypocrisy reigns and public health takes a back seat to agendas. Time for a full inquiry before more money vanishes into this smoke screen.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the GoodOil - where this article was sourced.
This engagement appears to promote very-low nicotine content (VLNC) cigarettes, a product that keeps all the harmful chemicals in burned tobacco but removes nicotine – the one chemical that is not inherently harmful.
Despite millions in taxpayer funding from the Health Research Council, these academics pushed policies that would effectively create a monopoly for 22nd Century Group, a Nasdaq-listed tobacco firm, in New Zealand’s market. Their actions contradict ASPIRE’s own policy against working with tobacco affiliates, raising questions about why health advocates would champion a genetically modified Big Tobacco product over safer, burn-free alternatives like vaping or nicotine replacement therapies.
This hypocrisy extends to media manipulation, with allies in outlets like Stuff and ThreeNews running stories that smear rivals while ignoring ASPIRE’s own industry dalliances, as evidenced by a recent Broadcasting Standards Authority ruling against such biased reporting.
Timeline of Events
2003–2005: New Zealand signs and ratifies the WHO FCTC, including Article 5.3, which mandates protecting tobacco policies from industry interference. Otago University, as a public entity, is bound by this. (WHO FCTC Article 5.3 guidelines)
2015: Auckland University’s Chris Bullen and others use 22nd Century Group’s VLNC cigarettes in New Zealand research trials. Critics note subjects compensated by smoking more intensely, undermining claims of reduced harm. (Prev Med criticism)
2016: Otago’s Janet Hoek, Andrew Waa, and Richard Edwards secure $1.18 million in Health Research Council (HRC) funding for Māori smoking research. A study co-authored by Edwards, Hoek, Bullen and US researchers Eric Donny and Dorothy Hatsukami (long-time 22nd Century collaborators) promotes VLNC cigarettes, citing no industry role despite using their products. (Study on reducing nicotine content)
2017: Otago’s ASPIRE 2025 publishes an action plan advocating mandated nicotine reduction, echoing 22nd Century’s business model. Dr Ayesha Verrall, then at Otago Wellington, is a contemporary of key figures like Diana Sarfati. (Otago’s smokefree plan)
2018: Another Otago study uses 22nd Century’s VLNC cigarettes to test demand elasticity. (Study on VLNC demand)
2019: Hoek and team secure $4.9 million HRC funding for smokefree disparities research, plus $1.19 million for roll-your-own tobacco strategies. (HRC funding announcements)
2020: Verrall enters politics as a Labour MP, becomes associate health minister overseeing tobacco control and 22nd Century’s SEC filings confirm it as a tobacco products company manufacturing combustibles. (22nd Century SEC filing)
2021: Ministry of Health consultation mirrors ASPIRE’s VLNC advocacy and 22nd Century publicly supports New Zealand’s reduced nicotine plans. (22nd Century press release)
November 2022: 22nd Century contacts Ministry of Health (declared under FCTC 5.3) but via a third party, reaches Edwards at ASPIRE, who shares pre-print articles and involves Hoek and Waa.
December 2022: Legislation passes mandating 0.8mg/g nicotine limit from April 2025, plus retailer caps, aligning with ASPIRE’s platform but benefitting 22nd Century as the primary VLNC supplier. (Smokefree Environments Act amendments) Zoom meeting between Edwards, Hoek, and 22nd Century’s John Pritchard.
January 2023: Edwards emails sharing denicotinisation research with 22nd Century.
March 2023: In-person meeting at Otago’s Wellington office with Edwards and Pritchard; Hoek joins via Zoom. Discussions cover distribution and rejecting legacy companies as partners. Edwards notes 22nd Century as a “very different” tobacco company despite FCTC definitions.
March 2024: Hoek criticises NZ ministers’ tobacco interactions on Radio NZ, demanding FCTC compliance. (Radio NZ interview)
May 2024: Hoek praises Verrall’s Tobacco Transparency Bill as “long overdue” to stop industry influence. (Otago support for bill)
2024: Hoek, Waa and team secure another $4.99 million HRC grant for endgame research, despite repeal of key measures, plus $1.17 million for youth vaping. (HRC funding success)
July 2024: Stuff and ThreeNews run stories alleging ASH links to pro-vaping lobbies. Broadcasting Standards Authority later rules them unfair, inaccurate and unbalanced. (BSA ruling)
November 2024: The coalition government repeals VLNC mandates and retailer reductions. (Repeal legislation)
2025: ASPIRE hosts webinar on tobacco interference, with Hoek and Waa as panellists, criticising New Zealand’s slipped global ranking. (Global Tobacco Interference Index)
If there is one thing that gets my blood boiling, it is the sight of taxpayer-funded academics playing both sides of the fence while pretending to be holier than thou. Here we have a bunch of self-proclaimed guardians of public health at Otago University, specifically the ASPIRE Aotearoa crew, who have spent years railing against the tobacco industry like it is the devil incarnate. They have got policies on their website banning any engagement with tobacco companies or their affiliates, even kicking them out of seminars and webinars (ASPIRE policy). Yet, according to this bombshell leak from inside the Ministry of Health, these same people have been cosying up to an American Big Tobacco outfit called 22nd Century Group, swapping emails, sharing research and holding secret meetings all while pushing policies that would hand this company a virtual monopoly on New Zealand’s cigarette market.
Let us start with the stars of this show: Professors Janet Hoek and Richard Edwards. Hoek, who scooped up the 2022 Critic and Conscience of Society Award for her supposed fearless tobacco control work (Otago award announcement), and Edwards, her co-director at ASPIRE, have positioned themselves as the untouchable voices of Smokefree purity. They bang on about the WHO FCTC’s Article 5.3, which demands governments and public entities shield policies from tobacco vested interests (FCTC details). Hoek has been quoted slamming politicians for even talking to tobacco reps, calling for “higher standards of disclosure and transparency” in May 2025. Edwards, in his emails, admits 22nd Century is a tobacco company but dismisses it as “very different” because it fits their agenda. Hypocrisy does not even begin to cover it.
What is this agenda? It boils down to very-low nicotine content cigarettes, or VLNCs. These academics have been pumping out studies and advocacy for years, funded by over $15 million in HRC grants since 2016 (HRC funding for Otago tobacco research), pushing for laws that mandate slashing nicotine in all smoked tobacco to near-zero levels. Sounds noble until you realise VLNCs remove nicotine, the addictive but non-carcinogenic bit, while leaving in all the tar, carcinogens and toxins that actually kill people. Why on earth would health advocates champion a product that is still burned tobacco and genetically modified to boot, when there are burn-free options like vaping, nicotine patches or gums that deliver nicotine without the combustion horrors? Critics have long pointed out that low-nicotine cigs might just make smokers puff harder, inhaling more toxins (Criticism of VLNC policy).
And here is the kicker: only one major player makes these VLNC cigarettes at scale, 22nd Century Group, a self-described tobacco products company in its SEC filings, complete with contract manufacturing for conventional cigs (22nd Century SEC filing). Their “Spectrum” research cigarettes have been the go-to for studies by Donny and Hatsukami, influential US researchers whose work fed into New Zealand advocacy. Otago studies in 2015, 2016 and 2018 used 22nd Century products and, by 2022, the company was knocking on doors here. While they declared contact with the Ministry, the leak shows they went through a third party to hook up with Edwards, who roped in Hoek and Waa. Emails reveal multiple exchanges, a December 2022 Zoom and a March 2023 in-person meet at Otago’s Wellington office, discussing distribution and rejecting “legacy” tobacco firms as partners. Edwards even shared pre-print denicotinisation papers in January 2023.
This is not some benign chat over tea. These meetings happened as Labour’s Smokefree laws, passed in December 2022, set a 0.8mg/g nicotine cap from April 2025, perfectly tailored to 22nd Century’s tech. Modelling cited by ASPIRE suggested this would slash smoking fastest (ASPIRE modelling). But who benefits? A foreign Big Tobacco firm poised to supply the market, potentially creating a monopoly since no other company has the patented low-nicotine tobacco ready. Concerns about this have bubbled up, with critics warning it hands power to one player (Monopoly concerns).
The hypocrisy peaks when you see how ASPIRE and allies treat others. They slammed the coalition for repealing the laws in 2024, calling it a setback (Repeal criticism), yet their own undeclared chats with 22nd Century violate the FCTC spirit they preach. Media allies ran hit pieces on groups like ASH in July 2024, alleging vaping ties, but the BSA smacked down Stuff and ThreeNews for inaccuracy and bias (BSA ruling on ASH stories). Who seeded those stories? The leak raises eyebrows about coordinated smears to clear the field for VLNCs.
Why push burned tobacco over safer alternatives? Motivation smells like ideology over evidence. These advocates seem fixated on eradication, even if it means partnering with Big Tobacco’s outlier to force smokers into quitting via unappealing cigs. But it ignores real-world harm reduction, where vaping has helped millions switch without combustion risks (Harm reduction critiques). And genetically modified tobacco? That adds another layer of irony for health purists.
Taxpayers deserve answers. Why has HRC poured millions into research that props up one company’s monopoly? Why the selective blindness to FCTC breaches? Hoek and Edwards need to explain their “very different” tobacco pals. This leak exposes a rotten core in New Zealand’s tobacco control scene, where hypocrisy reigns and public health takes a back seat to agendas. Time for a full inquiry before more money vanishes into this smoke screen.
Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the GoodOil - where this article was sourced.
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