New Zealand could be the first smoke-free country in a generation.
New Zealand officials announced Thursday that the country intends to ban smoking for the next generation in hopes of making tobacco illegal by 2025.
“People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally purchase tobacco,” Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said in a statement announcing the law.
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The law is part of the Smokefree 2025 Action Plan, an effort by the New Zealand government to diminish the number of death attributed to smoking-related causes.
“Smoking is still the leading cause of preventable death in New Zealand and causes 1 in 4 cancers,” claims Dr. Verrall. “Smoking-related harm is particularly prevalent in our Maori, Pacific, and low-income communities.” The New Zealand Ministry of Health estimates that smoking may have caused between 4,500-5,000 deaths in New Zealand.
The law is expected to be implemented in 2022, where the Labour Party holds a single-party majority. The law will slowly increase the age of smoking year over year starting in 2027, making it harder and harder for anyone born after a certain point to get cigarettes.
The plan will also restrict who can sell cigarettes, bringing the number of tobacco licenses down from 8,000 to 500.
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While this law will restrict sales, it does not mean the end of cigarette sales. The government intends to introduce an amendment bill that will allow the sale of cigarettes, but only if they have very low amounts of nicotine that are, ideally, below the level that would cause addiction. Chris Bullen, a public health professor at the University of Auckland, claims this would be a “world-first.”
New Zealand has made other efforts to fight the effect smoking has had on its population. In 2017, New Zealanders were encouraged to use vapes as a tool to help smokers quit tobacco, reports the BBC.
