New Zealand has announced today, Thursday, 9th December, 2021, it will outlaw smoking for the next generation, so that those who are aged 14 and under today will never be legally able to buy tobacco.
The new legislation suggests that the legal smoking age will increase every year, to create a smoke-free generation of New Zealanders.
Associate Health Minister, Dr. Ayesha Verrall speaking about the initiative said: “This is a historic day for the health of our people”.
The government announced the rising age alongside other measures to make smoking unaffordable and inaccessible, to try to reach its goal of making the country entirely smoke-free within the next four years.
Other measures include reducing the legal amount of nicotine in tobacco products to very low levels, cutting down the shops where cigarettes could legally be sold, and increasing funding to addiction services. However, the new laws will not restrict vape sales.
According to Dr. Verrall, the government wants to make sure young people never start smoking, therefore, the government “will make it’s an offense to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth. People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally purchase tobacco”.
Smoking Rates Drop in New Zealand
Per some reports, New Zealand’s daily smoking rates have been dropping over time down to 11.6% in 2018, from 18% a decade earlier. However, smoking rates in Māori and Pacifika were far higher thus, 29% for Māori and 18% for Pasifika.
Dr. Verrall noted that if nothing changes, it would be decades till Māori smoking rates fall below 5%. She emphasized that eradicating smoking in the next four years was within reach.
“I believe it is. In fact, we’re on track for the New Zealand European population. The issue is, though, if we don’t change what we’re doing, we won’t make it for Maori, and that is what the plan is really focused on”.
Dr. Verrall
The policies were welcomed by public health experts on Thursday, December 9, 2021. Director of the Centre for Addiction Research at the University of Auckland, Dr. Natalie Walker said: “New Zealand once again leads the world, this time with a cutting-edge smoke -free 2025 implementation plan and it’s truly a game-changer”.
According to a report after surveying 19,000 high school students this year, smoking has already been widely replaced by vaping among teenage New Zealanders and is also attracting many young people who would never have taken up smoking.
The reports of the survey also revealed that nearly 20% were vaping daily or several times a day, the majority with high nicotine doses. That’s compared to 3% of those aged 15-17 who smoked daily in 2018, or 13% who smoked a decade earlier.
Meanwhile, the plan to outlaw smoking in New Zealand has come under criticism from some parties. They argued that reducing the nicotine in products will hit lower-income people hardest, who will have to buy more cigarettes and smoke more to access the same dose.
However, Dr. Verrall argued that the very low levels required by the laws had been researched and proven to help people quit.
That notwithstanding, concerns have also been raised about a growing black market for tobacco. The government acknowledged this risk in initial proposals: “Evidence indicates that the amount of tobacco products being smuggled into New Zealand has increased substantially in recent years and organized criminal groups are involved in large-scale smuggling”.
The government emphasized its mandate to put an end to this situation.
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