SMOKING IS PROHIBITED FOR LIFE FOR YOUNG NEW ZEALANDERS

Wed 14 December 2022:

A unique proposal to phase out tobacco use in New Zealand was approved into law on Tuesday, prohibiting young people from ever purchasing smokes.

Tobacco cannot ever be sold to anyone who was born on or after January 1, 2009, according to the legislation.

It implies that the legal smoking age will continue to rise. Theoretically, someone wanting to purchase a pack of cigarettes in 50 years would require identification proving they were at least 63 years old.

The new law also reduces the number of retailers permitted to sell tobacco from approximately 6,000 to 600, as well as the amount of nicotine permitted in smoked tobacco.

“There is no good reason to allow a product to be sold that kills half the people that use it,” Associate Minister of Health Dr. Ayesha Verrall told lawmakers in Parliament. “And I can tell you that we will end this in the future, as we pass this legislation.”

She said the health system would save billions of dollars from not needing to treat illnesses caused by smoking, such as cancer, heart attacks, strokes, and amputations. She said the bill would create generational change and leave a legacy of better health for youth.

Vaping, which has already surpassed smoking in popularity in New Zealand, is unaffected by the rule.

According to Statistics New Zealand, 8% of New Zealand adults smoked daily, down from 16% ten years ago. Meanwhile, 8.3% of adults vaped daily, up from less than 1% six years ago.

New Zealand health authorities say smokers typically take up the habit during youth, with four in five New Zealanders who smoke beginning by age 18 and 96% by age 25. By stopping a generation from taking up smoking, they hope to avoid about 5,000 preventable deaths a year.

With 20% of Indigenous Mori stating they smoke, smoking rates are still higher among this group.

New Zealand already limits the sale of cigarettes to people who are at least 18 years old, requires tobacco packs to have graphic health warnings, and mandates that cigarettes be sold in standardized packs.

In recent years, New Zealand has also increased cigarette taxes significantly.

The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan banned cigarette sales outright in 2010 (although it lifted the ban temporarily in 2020 to stop black market imports from India during a COVID-19 border closure,

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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