The New Zealand government intends to prohibit minors from purchasing cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world's hardest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, claiming that other measures to eradicate smoking were too slow.
Older adults would be able to purchase only cigarette products with extremely low nicotine levels, and fewer outlets will be able to offer tobacco products, Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall revealed Thursday in Parliament.
The regulations are part of the new Smoke-Free 2025 action plan released by the government.
Before introducing legislation into parliament in June next year, the government will consult with a Maori health action group, with a goal of passing it by the end of 2022.
"To ensure that young people never start smoking, we're going to make it illegal to sell or supply smoke tobacco products to new cohorts of young people," Verrall explained.
The new measure would make New Zealand's retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world, second only to Bhutan, which prohibits cigarette sales entirely.
Nationally, up to 8,000 stores sell tobacco, but this number would be trimmed down to around 500 under the new rules.
Australia, New Zealand's neighbor, was the first country in the world to enforce plain cigarette packaging in 2012.
Smoking is the largest preventable cause of mortality in New Zealand, accounting for one in every four cancers. "While smoking rates are decreasing, we must do more and faster to achieve our goal," Verrall added.
While existing efforts such as plain packaging and cigarette sales taxes had decreased tobacco consumption, the New Zealand government stated that without more initiatives, the country was unlikely to meet its objective of less than 5% of the population smoking daily by 2025.
"If nothing changes, it will take decades for Mori smoking rates to decline below 5%, and this administration is not willing to leave anyone behind," Verrall added.
The planned initiatives will result in expected savings of NZ$5 billion ($4.7 billion) in future public health expenditure, she said.
Even though some of the plan's suggestions are non-legislative in nature, such as practical support measures for smokers, others, like a tobacco tax reform, will demand changes to existing legislation. These measures are expected to be put into effect in 2022.
The reforms will not take effect immediately, Verrall said, giving merchants time to move to a new business model. The legislation must yet pass through the legislative procedure.
