Associate Professor George Laking - University of Auckland
- Pippa Starr
- Jul 18, 2023
- 2 min read
Updated: Apr 20
Dr George Laking is a medical oncologist at Auckland and Northland District Health Boards. He has spent many years in treatment of lung cancer, and this led to his interest in tobacco control. George is the Chair of End Smoking New Zealand, and is involved in Māori Health as a past Chair of Te ORA (the Māori Medical Practitioners' Association), as a member of the Māori Health Committee of the RACP, and a board member of Hei Ahuru Mowai Maori Cancer Leadership Aotearoa.
18 July 2023
29 May 2023 - Letter To Mark Butler
8 May 2023 - Why NZ should not copy Australian vape clampdown
I don’t vape or smoke, and I don’t have teenage children, but I have a family member who was a youth smoker and now vapes, and who I would ideally prefer to quit. But I am still happier they are vaping rather than smoking. I have tried both, and it was my good fortune to be addicted to neither. As a cancer specialist, I feel much more worried about the consequences of my youthful forays into smoking than vaping.
A decade and a half ago, we had big hopes for pharmacotherapy to help people quit smoking. Nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) with patches and gum promised a simple and safe replacement for cigarettes for people wanting to quit. But these hopes were only partially fulfilled, as it proved only 7 percent effective. Neither were the drugs bupropion, nortriptyline and varenicline (Champix) any better.
The problem with NRT is its pharmacology – the way it works. It cannot deliver the same rapid spike in arterial blood nicotine levels as a cigarette. With the arrival of e-cigarettes, at last there was a way of getting nicotine that approached the subjective experience of smoking tobacco.
14 October 2021 - TGA Meeting - Nicotine vaping products, the NZ smoking cessation experience
