28TH-JANUARY-2023

New Zealand has a new plan to ban anyone buying cigarettes born in New Zealand after 2009 to try and make their country smoke free by 2025. The new law states that tobacco will never be sold to anybody born on or after January 1 2009 and it is the first law in the world that will annually increase the smoking age, that means the minimum age for buying cigarettes will just keep going up.

The law also comes with a new reduced number of retailers that will be allowed to sell tobacco from around 6,000 shops to around about 600 and will decrease the amount of nicotine allowed in tobacco that is smoked.

New Zealand already has restricted cigarette sales to those aged 18 and over and it also requires that all tobacco packs come with graphic health warnings and cigarettes to be sold in plain standardized packs. In recent years the country have also imposed some new big tax hikes on the cigarettes sold.

New Zealand’s Associate Minister of Health, Dr Ayesha Verrall, said: “There is no good reason to allow a product to be sold that kills half the people that use it.”
“And i can tell you that we will end this in the future, as we pass this legislation.”
“The health system would save billions from not needing to treat illnesses caused by smoking, such as cancer, heart attacks, strokes and amputations.”
“The bill would create generational change and leave a legacy of better health for youth.”

The law will not affect vaping which has already become more popular than smoking. New Zealand Statistics have reported in the last few months that 8% of New Zealand adults smoked daily, down from 16% a decade ago. Meanwhile 8.3% of adults vaped daily, up from less than 1% six years ago.