We have had the 2025 goal since 2011 but are not currently on track. A boost in funding and commitment is required, writes public health expert Robert Beaglehole.

Colin still haunts me. He was the first hospital patient I talked with as a young medical student in Dunedin in 1965. He was coughing blood from lung cancer caused by his long history of cigarette smoking. I was shocked and powerless; treatment of advanced lung cancer, then as now, is mainly palliative. Along with many other personal experiences of the uniquely harmful effects of cigarettes, my passion for a smokefree country led to the formation of ASH, Action for Smoking and Health, in 1982.