New Zealand’s plan to quit smoking: a lifetime ban for youth

Wellington, New Zealand: The New Zealand government believes it has come up with a unique plan to end tobacco smoking – a lifetime ban for people aged 14 or under.
Under a new law the government announced on Thursday, the minimum age to buy cigarettes will continue to increase year after year.
This means, in theory, at least 65 years after the law took effect, shoppers could still buy cigarettes – but only if they could prove they were at least 80 years old.
In practice, officials expect smoking to end decades ago. Indeed, the plan sets a target for New Zealanders to smoke less than 5 percent by 2025.
Other parts of the plan include allowing the sale of only tobacco products with very low nicotine levels and reducing the number of stores selling them. Changes will be brought in over time to help retailers adjust.
Since the current minimum age to buy cigarettes in New Zealand is 18, a lifetime smoking ban for young people will have no effect for a few years.
In an interview with the Associated Press, New Zealand’s Associate Health Minister Dr. Ayesha Veral, who is leading the plan, said that her work at a public hospital in Wellington included telling many smokers that they had Cancer is gone.
Veral said, “You meet someone every day who is coping with the misery caused by tobacco.” “People die in the most terrifying way. Having trouble breathing is caused by tobacco.”
Smoking rates in New Zealand have been falling steadily over the years, with only about 11 percent of adults now smoking and 9 percent smoking every day. The daily rate among indigenous Māori is much higher, at 22 percent. Under the government’s plan a task force will be created to help reduce smoking in Māori.
There have already been major tax increases on cigarettes in recent years and there are some questions as to why they weren’t raised even more.
“We don’t think the tax hike will have any further impact,” Veral said. “It’s really hard to quit and we feel that if we did that, we would punish people who are addicted to cigarettes.”
And she said the tax measures put a higher burden on people with lower incomes, who are more likely to smoke.
The new law will not affect vaping. Veral said tobacco smoking is far more harmful and remains a leading cause of preventable deaths in New Zealand, killing 5,000 people each year.
“We think vaping is a really suitable quitting tool,” she said.
The sale of vaping products is already restricted in New Zealand to those 18 years of age and older, and vaping is banned in schools. Veral said there was some evidence of a rise in youth vaping, a trend she’s following “really closely.”
He said New Zealand’s approach of banning the next generation from smoking tobacco has not been tried anywhere else.
But she said that studies have shown that youth sales decline at the minimum ageing. In the US, the federal minimum age to purchase tobacco products was raised from 18 to 21 two years ago.
While public health experts have generally welcomed New Zealand’s plan, not everyone is happy.
Sunny Kaushal said that some shops may be put out of business. Kaushal chairs the Dairy and Business Owners Group, which represents about 5,000 corner stores – often called dairies in New Zealand – and gas stations.
“We all want a smoke-free New Zealand,” he said. “But it is going to affect small businesses a lot. This should not be done, so it is destroying dairies, lives and families in the process. This is not the way.”
Kaushal said the hike in tax on tobacco has already created a black market that is being exploited by gangs, and the problem will only get worse. He said that smoking in New Zealand was already in its twilight and would die on its own.
“It is being driven by academics,” he said, adding that stakeholders were not consulted.
But Veral said he didn’t believe the government was moving because data showed the vast majority of smokers wanted to quit anyway, and the new policies would only help them achieve their goal.
She said the pandemic has helped people gain a new appreciation for public health measures and the benefits of rallying communities, and perhaps that energy can be harnessed to tackle not only smoking but diseases like diabetes. .
Veral said she had never smoked herself, but her late grandmother did, and it was likely compromising her health.
“It’s a really brutal product,” Veral said.