New Zealand plans to make it unlawful for people born after 2009 to purchase cigarettes.
The New Zealand parliament approved the first draft of a measure that will make it unlawful for people born after 2009 to purchase cigarettes. The first draft of the bill passed almost unanimously.
This represents a significant advancement in New Zealand's effort to become smoke-free by 2025. After Health Select Committee comments and study, the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill will likely return to the House in late 2022 to be enacted into law.
However, there is still some concern from opposition parties over how the bill would be implemented. The Libertarian Act party stated that lowering the amount of nicotine in goods will disproportionately affect those with lesser incomes since they will need to purchase and smoke more cigarettes to get the same dose. The New Zealand National party has reservations about the experimental nature of the results of the proposed policy.
“Most of the measures being considered have yet to be widely implemented internationally, and in some cases, New Zealand would be the first in the world to implement them,” said National MP Matt Doocey. “I don’t have a problem that New Zealand is going to be the first in the world,” said Doocey, "but the policy’s untested nature meant there was significant uncertainty in the outcomes.” The Green party is concerned that a criminal ban would push the sector into crime.
The bill drastically reduces nicotine content in tobacco to non-addictive levels, reduces the number of shops that can sell tobacco by 90-95%, and, most notable, makes it illegal to sell tobacco to people born in 2009 or later (thus creating a “smokefree generation”).