Action for Smokefree Aotearoa (ASH) is deeply saddened by the death of Dr Murray Laugesen (1935–2026). Murray was an integral and influential figure in Aotearoa New Zealand’s journey to reduce smoking to record-low levels.

ASH was privileged to work with Murray for more than 40 years and to benefit from his service and guidance as Chair of ASH from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s—a key period in New Zealand’s smokefree history.

In 1984 Murray was appointed as the first principal medical officer at the Department of Health to work soley on tobacco monitoring and control. A position he held for over a decade during which has had a profound influence on new Zealand’s tobacco policy.  One of his first moves was to make the department smokefree in 1987, the first government department to do so.

Murray cared deeply about the impact of smoking on everyone, including people who smoked. He made sure that “we offered people whatever assistance they wanted to help them to get through the painful period”. His empathy for people experiencing nicotine dependence and smoking addiction consistently underpinned his approach.

One of Murray’s defining contributions was his role as a central architect of New Zealand’s original, world-leading Smokefree Environments Act 1990. The Act became a foundation of New Zealand’s tobacco policy and a template for many other countries that followed.

Murray leaves a substantial legacy, with major contributions spanning research, policy and practical measures to reduce the harms caused by smoking. Among the many highlights were:

• Establishing the ASH Year 10 Survey, New Zealand’s longest-running and largest survey of youth smoking. Since it began, almost 750,000 New Zealand students have taken part.
• Co-authoring, with Professor Alistair Woodward, the influential report Deaths in New Zealand Attributable to Second Hand Cigarette Smoke, published in 2000.
•  Playing a key role in New Zealand becoming the one of the first countries to protect workers by making indoor workplaces smokefree.

 Murray remained an innovative and critical thinker throughout his career and into retirement, and many of his ideas are still being pursued today. He called early for cigarettes to be redesigned to reduce their appeal and fire risk, advocated differential taxes for roll-your-own tobacco, and became a pioneering thinker and voice in tobacco harm reduction.

Murray was among the first to recognise the impact of oral tobacco on reducing smoking in Scandinavia, and he approached the possibility that harm reduction could help people with curiosity, scientific scrutiny and empathy.

His work included some of the first independent risk testing of first-generation electronic cigarettes, undertaken with the University of Canterbury in 2008, as well as clinical trials for smoking cessation. He remained active in research and publishing until very recently.

It is impossible to capture all of Murray’s contributions. New Zealand owes him an enormous debt of gratitude for a career defined by leadership in both thought and action against the harms of tobacco. Much of the progress made since can be traced to his foundational work, his innovation and his readiness to challenge the status quo.

We remember Murray with gratitude and affection, and extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and colleagues. He will be greatly missed.