As predicted, New Zealand was handed the Global Alliance for Tobacco Control’s (GATC) “Dirty Ashtray Award” at the World Health Organization’s FCTC COP11 — a symbolic dishonor for countries or delegations seen as obstructing tobacco control progress or aligning too closely with tobacco industry interests. Copwatch had warned this would happen, pointing to New Zealand’s open promotion of harm reduction.

GATC’s citation accuses New Zealand of “trying to portray their current tobacco control plan as a success when in reality, since COP10, they’ve reversed world-leading reforms, sabotaged Indigenous tobacco-free aspirations, have alarming vaping rates among young people, and have plummeted from 2nd to 53rd on the global index for tobacco industry interference. New Zealand’s legislative reversal is being used by tobacco industry interests globally to push bad policy.”

Those criticisms sit awkwardly alongside New Zealand’s hard numbers: a 6.8% smoking rate (the fifth-lowest in the world), packs of cigarettes costing just under NZ$50 (about $28), plain packaging rules, and smoking bans across virtually all public places. By contrast, Mexico — with a 15.4% smoking rate and an average pack price of $0.70 — received GATC’s “Orchid Award” for “powerful and uncompromising statements against the tobacco industry.”

The awards provoked sharp pushback. “The (Bloomberg-funded) Global Alliance for Tobacco Control has given the Dirty Ashtray award to New Zealand for having one of the world’s lowest smoking rates but doing it in a way that Bloomberg disapproves,” Institute of Economic Affairs head Chris Snowden wrote on X. The global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, which factored in New Zealand’s drop, is financed by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Commentators on the harm-reduction side also objected. Alastair Cohen noted in Clearing the Air that “youth vaping rates have fallen for three successive years in New Zealand,” and questioned the contrast of Mexico being rewarded despite much higher smoking rates. The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) called the Dirty Ashtray award “not public health advocacy,” calling it “ideological obstruction.”

CAPHRA’s executive coordinator Nancy Loucas argued that “prohibition-driven NGOs have placed ideology ahead of public health outcomes.” In a statement the group said the FCTC Secretariat allowed well-funded NGOs to dominate proceedings, pressure delegations, and exclude voices with lived experience — many of whom were reportedly denied access to COP11. CAPHRA concluded that the decision reflects a COP process driven by prohibitionist ideology rather than evidence, dismissing harm-reduction–driven gains as “tobacco industry interference” and ignoring the substantial health benefits achieved.

This article was adapted from an original report published on tobaccoreporter.com. All rights belong to the original publisher.