New Zealand to ban smoking for future generations

WELLINGTON • New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes, in one of the world's toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long.

People in the country aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in their lifetime, part of proposals unveiled yesterday that will also curb the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and cut nicotine levels in all products.

The move means a person aged 60 in 2073 will be banned from buying cigarettes, while a person aged 61 would be allowed to do so.

"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," said New Zealand Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall.

Health authorities say smokers typically take up the habit in their youth, with four in five of New Zealanders who smoke beginning by age 18, and 96 per cent by age 25.

By stopping a generation from taking up smoking, they hope to avoid about 5,000 preventable deaths a year.

Currently, 11.6 per cent of New Zealanders aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that rises to 29 per cent among indigenous Maori adults.

"If nothing changes, it would be decades till Maori smoking rates fall below 5 per cent, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind," Ms Verrall said.

The government will consult a Maori health task force in the coming months before introducing legislation in Parliament next June, with the aim of making it law by the end of next year.

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 a "smoke-free" generation from 2027.

The package of measures will make New Zealand's retail tobacco industry one of the world's most restricted, just behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned outright.

The New Zealand government said that while existing measures such as plain packaging and sales levies had slowed tobacco consumption, the tougher steps were necessary to achieve its goal of less than 5 per cent of the population smoking daily by 2025.

The new rules would halve the country's smoking rates in as few as 10 years from when they take effect, the government said.

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

The government did not give specifics about how the new rules would be policed, or whether and how they would apply to visitors to the country.

New Zealand Medical Association chair Alistair Humphrey said: "Cigarette smoking kills 14 New Zealanders every day, and two out of three smokers will die as a result of smoking. This action plan offers some hope."

But the Dairy and Business Owners Group, a lobby group for local convenience stores, said the move would destroy many businesses. "There's going to be a crime wave. Gangs and criminals will fill the gap with ciggie houses," said the group's chairman Sunny Kaushal.

In Singapore, it is illegal for anyone aged below 21 to buy, use, possess, sell or supply tobacco products. The age limit was raised from 20 this year, as the final part of a law passed in 2017 when the age limit was 18.

Smoking is banned in most indoor locations, as well as in all public areas within the Orchard Road precinct unless otherwise designated. Singapore banned all tobacco advertising in 1971 and mandated graphic warnings on the dangers of smoking on cigarette packs in 2004.

REUTERS

Percentage of New Zealanders aged over 15 who smoke.

Proportion of indigenous Maori adults who smoke.