Transparency Is Not a Scandal: Why Is Vape-Free Kids Targeting ASH New Zealand?

Something strange has happened in New Zealand’s tobacco debate.

Vape-Free Kids New Zealand, a group established to protect young people from vaping, submitted an extraordinarily broad Official Information Act request seeking communications between Associate Health Minister Casey Costello and three respected public health advocates: Professor Robert Beaglehole, Professor Ruth Bonita and ASH New Zealand director Ben Youdan.

The request covered nearly three years, beginning on 27 November 2023. It sought emails, Teams messages, Signal messages, WhatsApp messages, texts, phone messages, calls and records of calls. It also sought correspondence concerning Professor Beaglehole’s attendance at the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Conference of the Parties and other events on behalf of the New Zealand Government.

There is nothing improper about using the Official Information Act. Transparency is essential, particularly in public health. Vape-Free Kids was legally entitled to ask, the Minister’s office was obliged to respond, and the public is entitled to examine the result.

But now that the 66 pages have been released, a fair question must be asked: what exactly was Vape-Free Kids hoping to find?

ASH has published the complete release itself, including the redactions made by the Minister’s office. It did not hide behind a carefully selected statement or release only the flattering pages. It put the correspondence into the open so people could read it in full and judge it in context.

That is not the behaviour of an organisation frightened by scrutiny. It is the behaviour of one confident that its advocacy can withstand it.

And what does the correspondence reveal?

It shows public health advocates communicating with the minister responsible for tobacco and vaping policy about tobacco and vaping policy. That is not a scandal. It is their job.

The documents show ASH sharing smoking prevalence data, discussing New Zealand’s progress against comparable countries, providing new peer-reviewed research and supporting practical ways to help adults stop smoking. ASH backed vape starter kits delivered through stop-smoking services, but it also advocated better access to cytisine, a non-vaping cessation medicine. It proposed targeted help for people leaving hospital, people receiving mental health care, Māori, Pacific peoples and communities where smoking remains concentrated.

This is not an indiscriminate campaign to promote vaping. It is a serious attempt to reduce the use of the product causing the overwhelming burden of death and disease: combustible cigarettes.

The correspondence also shows care around industry influence. In one email, Ben Youdan specifically described research as independent of industry. Professor Beaglehole’s notes from the WHO conference described New Zealand’s approach as public-health-led, evidence-based and protected from industry. ASH states that it accepts no funding from tobacco, vaping or pharmaceutical companies.

If the implied suspicion was that ASH is acting as a tobacco or vaping industry proxy, the released papers do not establish it. They show the opposite: independent health advocates openly presenting evidence and policy proposals to an elected government.

There is another fact that cannot be ignored. New Zealand has achieved one of the fastest declines in smoking among comparable countries while retaining regulated adult access to vaping. At the same time, youth vaping has been falling. The Government reported in December 2024 that daily vaping among Year 10 students had declined to 8.7 per cent, and ASH’s later survey reporting says the fall continued. Youth smoking is now exceptionally low.

None of that means youth vaping should be dismissed. It should not. Retailers who sell to children should face meaningful penalties. Marketing and product presentation should not target them. Schools and families need credible information and support for young people who are nicotine-dependent.

ASH has never needed to choose between protecting children and helping adults escape cigarettes. That is a false choice imposed by a debate that too often treats all nicotine use as though it carries the same risk.

Vape-Free Kids says it is a grassroots organisation of parents and whānau seeking to reduce harm to rangatahi. That concern deserves respect. Families dealing with youth nicotine dependence are not inventing their experiences, and their voices belong in this debate.

But concern for young people does not justify placing an independent smoke-free organisation under a cloud merely because it accepts that vaping can help adults quit smoking.

That is why the choice of target matters.

Why did Vape-Free Kids seek every conceivable form of communication involving these particular people? What concern prompted a request reaching into Signal, WhatsApp and records of phone calls? Was there a specific allegation to test, or was the exercise designed to search backwards through years of legitimate public health engagement in the hope that something suspicious might emerge?

If there were a concrete concern, Vape-Free Kids should state it clearly. If the concern was simply that ASH had access to a minister, consistency demands much more.

Has Vape-Free Kids sought the same sweeping disclosure of ministerial communications with organisations demanding tighter vaping restrictions? Has it examined the access and influence of groups aligned with its own policy preferences? Has it requested correspondence involving organisations that support pharmacy-only access, severe flavour restrictions or policies that could make vaping less attractive and less accessible to adults who smoke?

Transparency cannot be credible when it travels in only one ideological direction.

There is an uncomfortable pattern in tobacco control. People who support prohibition or tighter restrictions are often treated as self-evidently motivated by health. People who support harm reduction are treated as suspects and asked to prove their innocence. Their funding, contacts, language and private communications are examined for signs of contamination, even when they are lifelong public health professionals with no industry funding.

That double standard damages public debate.

Robert Beaglehole and Ruth Bonita are not fringe campaigners. They are emeritus professors with long international careers in public health. Ben Youdan leads an organisation whose very name states its purpose: Action for Smokefree 2025. Disagreeing with their interpretation of the evidence is entirely legitimate. Trying to turn routine contact with government into evidence of wrongdoing is something else.

Ministers should hear from more than one side. They should meet youth advocates, parents, clinicians, researchers, people who smoke, people who vape, Māori health leaders, cessation workers and independent harm-reduction experts. A minister receiving information from ASH is not evidence of capture. It is evidence that someone working in public health has communicated with the minister responsible for public health policy.

Indeed, the greater danger would be a government hearing only from organisations that already agree with one another.

The released correspondence gives the public a useful picture of ASH’s priorities. Those priorities include reducing smoking, correcting misinformation about relative risk, widening the range of quitting options, concentrating help on communities still carrying the greatest burden and defending public policy from tobacco industry influence.

People are free to disagree with any of those positions. But disagreement should be argued using evidence, not converted into suspicion by association.

Vape-Free Kids should explain what public-interest question justified the breadth and focus of this request. It should also say whether it accepts what the documents actually show: no exposed conspiracy, no demonstrated industry direction and no hidden commercial agenda, just public health advocates making a case for a harm-reduction strategy they believe is helping New Zealand become smoke-free.

ASH deserves scrutiny. So does Vape-Free Kids. So does every organisation attempting to influence government policy.

The standard must be equal.

If Vape-Free Kids wanted transparency, ASH has given it transparency in full. If it hoped to uncover something darker, the release has not delivered it. What remains is a much simpler story: ASH New Zealand has defended an evidence-based approach that tries to protect young people while helping adults leave smoking behind.

That is not a scandal. It is public health.