WELLINGTON: New Zealand on Thursday announced plans to prevent 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.
The measures will mean that people aged 14 and under in 2027 will not be able to purchase cigarettes or tobacco products in their lifetime, while the level of nicotine in cigarettes available to older people will be reduced.
The number of retailers able to sell cigarettes could also be cut substantially, officials said. The legislation is expected to be enacted next year.
“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 Māori smoking rates fall below five per cent, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind,” he added. Currently, 11.6pc of all New Zealanders aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that rises to 29pc 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.
Health officials and campaign groups have welcomed the move, recognizing the proposed reforms as one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry.
New Zealand already requires plain packaging and has high taxes on cigarettes, but the health ministry says more action is required if it is to reach the goal of making the country smoke-free by 2025.
The New Zealand government said while existing measures like plain packaging and levies on sales had slowed tobacco consumption, the tougher steps were necessary to achieve its goal of fewer than 5pc of the population smoking daily by 2025.
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.
