A professor of public health has claimed smoking rates would be dramatically reduced if misinformation wasn't being spread about e-cigarettes.
Massey University professor of public health Marewa Glover says smokeless products like vapes are the key to reducing smoking rates, following a mere 0.6 percent decrease in smokers over the past year.
"These new smokeless products that are much less harmful, they are like a flaming torch, you give everyone one of them, stand them at the top of the glacier and we would see it melt much faster," she said.
Dr Glover was scathing about media claims smoking rates had dramatically dropped, which she said was less than half a percent per annum since anti-smoking campaigns were introduced 45 years ago.