New Zealand’s government believes it has come up with a unique plan to end tobacco smoking and put a lifetime ban on those who are 14 and younger.
Under a new law that the government announced Thursday and plans to pass next year, the minimum age to buy cigarettes would rise year after year, keeping them out of legal reach for today’s youth even as they get older.
"We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it 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," associate health minister Dr. Ayesha Verrall said.
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. The new laws will not restrict vape sales.
That means that, at least in theory, 65 years after the law takes effect, cigarettes could be legally purchased only by those who could prove they were at least 80 years old.
In practice, officials hope smoking will fade away decades before that. Indeed, the plan sets a goal of having fewer than 5% of New Zealanders smoking by 2025.
This decision was taken after experts observed that nearly 4,500 locals lose their lives to tobacco consumption every year. The decision would also 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 neighbor Australia was the first country in the world to mandate plain packaging of cigarettes in 2012.
Under a new law that the government announced Thursday and plans to pass next year, the minimum age to buy cigarettes would rise year after year, keeping them out of legal reach for today’s youth even as they get older.
"We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it 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," associate health minister Dr. Ayesha Verrall said.
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. The new laws will not restrict vape sales.
That means that, at least in theory, 65 years after the law takes effect, cigarettes could be legally purchased only by those who could prove they were at least 80 years old.
In practice, officials hope smoking will fade away decades before that. Indeed, the plan sets a goal of having fewer than 5% of New Zealanders smoking by 2025.
This decision was taken after experts observed that nearly 4,500 locals lose their lives to tobacco consumption every year. The decision would also 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 neighbor Australia was the first country in the world to mandate plain packaging of cigarettes in 2012.
