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How New Zealand plans to quit smoking for good with a lifetime cigarette ban for youth

3 min read

Better Society
Source: Pixabay/HansMartinPaul

New Zealand has announced that the legal smoking age will be raised by a year—every year—starting in 2027, meaning those aged 14 and under today will never become legally old enough to buy tobacco.

New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for future generations

On Thursday 9 December 2021, Reuters reported on New Zealand’s announcement to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long. New Zealand said it will ban young people from buying cigarettes for life, one of the toughest approaches in the world to curbing smoking deaths, as part of a wider plan that focuses on the disproportionate impact on its indigenous Maori population. — Reuters 

Smoking kills about 5,000 people a year in New Zealand, making it one of the country's top causes of preventable death. Four in five smokers started before age 18, the country's government said.
New Zealand to ban cigarette sales for anyone born after 2008. Smoking kills about 5,000 people a year in New Zealand, making it one of the country’s top causes of preventable death. Four in five smokers started before age 18, the country’s government said. Source: Unsplash/Arun Sharma

New Zealand’s “smoke-free” generation from 2027

People aged 14 and under today will never become legally old enough to purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of 5 million, as part of proposals reported on Thursday 9 December 2021, that will also curb the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and cut nicotine levels in all products.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth," New Zealand Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall said in a statement. "If nothing changes, it would be decades till Maori smoking rates fall below 5%, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind."

Currently, 11.6% of all New Zealanders aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that rises to 29% among indigenous Maori adults, according to government figures.

The government will consult with a Maori health task force in the coming months before introducing legislation into parliament in June next year, with the aim of making it law by the end of 2022. The restrictions would then be rolled out in stages from 2024, beginning with a sharp reduction in the number of authorised sellers, followed by reduced nicotine requirements in 2025 and the creation of the "smoke-free" generation from 2027.

The package of measures will make New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world, just behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned outright. New Zealand’s neighbour Australia was the first country in the world to mandate plain packaging of cigarettes in 2012.

Smoking kills about 5,000 people a year in New Zealand, making it one of the country’s top causes of preventable death. Four in five smokers started before age 18, the country’s government said.

Health authorities welcomed the crackdown, while retailers and tobacco companies expressed concern about the impact on their businesses and warned of the emergence of a black market.

Source: Reuters

The government says it wants to introduce the changes in phases to lessen the economic shock on retailers and give people with mental health issues – a group with far higher smoking rates – time to manage the change.
The package of measures will make New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world, just behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned outright. The government says it wants to introduce the changes in phases to lessen the economic shock on retailers and give people with mental health issues – a group with far higher smoking rates – time to manage the change. Source: Unsplash/Steven Pahel
New Zealand will ban cigarette sales for future generations. New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world's toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long. Source: Facebook/Reuters
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