New Zealand is taking a fairly radical step toward ending smoking in the country, introducing a law that will ban anyone who is 14 or younger in the year 2027, when the law fully goes into effect, from buying cigarettes at any point in their lifetime.
This will give the country a completely smoke-free population within five generations, which is a pretty incredibly feat.
New Zealand Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall explained that the country has a serious goal in mind. She said, "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."
Presently, 1 in 10 people over the age of 15 smoke in New Zealand, and within the Māori population, the estimate is closer to 1 in 3 people over 15. Verrall added, "If nothing changes, it would be decades till Māori smoking rates fall below 5%, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind."
The goal is to pass the law so that it starts being enforced by the end of 2022. The rollout of the law will be staggered and will begin with a lower number of permits being issued to businesses that want to sell tobacco products, then reduced nicotine requirements by 2025, and then the full ban will kick in two years later.
New Zealand Medical Association Chair Alistair Humphrey told Reuters that the situation in New Zealand is fairly dire. He noted, "Cigarette smoking kills 14 New Zealanders every day and two out of three smokers will die as a result of smoking."
He adds, "This action plan offers some hope of realising our 2025 Smokefree Aotearoa goal, and keeping our tamariki [Māori children] smokefree."
However, not everyone agrees with the proposed law.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most vocal critics of the proposed law are people in the tobacco industry. Imperial Brands cigarettes commented, "Prohibitions of any kind tend to play into the hands of criminal traders who peddle unregulated illicit products."