New Zealand has made plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world’s most brutal crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking will take too long. People aged 14 and under in 202
to purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of 5 million; part of proposals unveiled on Thursday, December 9 that will also put restrictions on the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and reduce nicotine levels in all products.
According to government figures, currently, 11.6% of the population in New Zealand aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that has risen to 29% among indigenous Maori adults. In the coming months, the government will consult with a Maori health task force before introducing the legislation into parliament in June next year to make it law by the end of 2022.
“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 Maori smoking rates fall below 5%, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind.“
