New Zealand to completely outlaw smoking

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

From 2027, the minimum age legal age to buy tobacco in New Zealand will be increased annually by one year from the present age of 18. So if you’re a 13 year old now, it will never be legal for you to buy tobacco in New Zealand.

This will save countless lives, but it’s a libertarians nightmare. However at least I suppose existing smokers will not get clobbered. Though imagine being the last New Zealander alive legally allowed to buy tobacco? (At that point they will probably have to grow it themselves.)

2

Or buy black market cigarettes from a guy wearing a trench coat in a dark alley.

~VOW

3

That’ll work about as well as any other form of prohibition (alcohol, guns, drugs, etc.), I’m sure. Even North Korea, the people who thought “1984” was an instruction manual, has a black market.

4

According to a quick Google search, this will save about 5000 lives a year in New Zealand…eventually. Seems a bit extreme for that number of lives, but if the people of New Zealand are good with that, then more power to them. In the US this would save around 500k deaths, but then there are only 5 million people in New Zealand while there are over 320 million in the US, so I guess it’s all relative.

It’s actually a clever way to do a ban since it won’t affect adults (i.e. voters) alive today, and only affect those too young to do anything about it.

5

Smoking is on the way out, like in so many developed countries.

Targeting the young before they become addicted seems quite shrewd.

6

Does it ban buying and smoking, or just buying?

7

Except for the black market. Underage people anywhere don’t have that much trouble getting hold of age-restricted goods.

About all prohibition does (take a look at US history with alcohol or drugs, for example) is make various criminal enterprises more rewarding.

8

Road trip to Vanuatu!

9

Ok, that cracked me up. :smiley:

10

As much as I admire their motive, when you outlaw smoking, only outlaws will smoke. Fewer of them, likely, but you know.

11

If they had better skiing, I’d move there. But they wouldn’t have me, I’m sure.

12

A good idea from the land of the long white tobacco free cloud. They have quite a lot of them.
One wonders how vociferous the reaction from Big Tobacco will be.

Plain packaging for tobacco products was another good Kiwi idea which was flinched by Australia and implemented in 2012.

Big Tobacco launched a series of high profile, expensive and protracted legal challenges:

British American Tobacco took a constitutional challenge to the Australian High Court that the government had acquired without compensation their intellectual property and trademarks. The case lost 6-1.

Philip Morris then launched proceedings in Hong Kong that the decision was in breach of the trade treaty between Australia and Hong Kong. The three international arbitrators agreed with Australia and awarded costs to Canberra.

Then at the WTO in Geneva where Ukraine, joined by Honduras, Indonesia, the Dominican Republic and Cuba claimed that the plain packaging rules were a non-tariff barrier.

Australia won. Honduras and the Dominican Republic appealed. The ruling was upheld.

After 10 years, three governments, five prime ministers and four court cases – Australia seen off every legal challenge to plain packaging the tobacco industry has thrown at them.

Since 2012 France; the United Kingdom, New Zealand], Norway, Ireland, Thailand, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Slovenia, Turkey, Canada, Singapore, Belgium and The Netherlands have followed the lead.

You can thank us later.

13

As you may have noticed, I am a long-time great admirer of many things New Zealand – including my late husband.

I’ve often said that maybe the biggest mistake of my life was when we chose to stay in the USA instead of returning to his native land of the long white (tobacco-free) cloud.

I’ll thank you now. :slight_smile:

14

… and outlaws may aspire to a monopoly on cancer of the lungs, larynx, mouth, esophagus, throat, bladder, kidney, liver, stomach, pancreas, colon and rectum, cervix, and acute myeloid leukemia. More fool them.

15

Before I left New Zealand, smoking was already heavily reduced due to the imposition of smoke-free areas in workplaces and public spaces etc*. Since then (22 years now) it’s only gone down even further. And as they’re targeting young people, who from what I can tell are a very enlightened group at the moment, this will probably do very well and make a difference. It likely won’t eliminate it entirely, but if they do implement a full ban, it will be easier to pass after this has worked through the system, than it would be to do it right now.

*When I moved to Australia, it was a shock to see smoking was still very popular here amongst certain groups.

16

Except they’re just vaping instead of smoking, and this law doesn’t cover vaping.

17

We are not living in the 1920’s anymore. In the bad old days 80 + % of men smoked etc. etc.

18

My understanding is smoking rates in New Zealand is still fairly prevalent, especially among the Maori, but is becoming less popular. It has been largely replaced by vaping. While I applaud the symbolic gesture, of course some will continue to get tobacco through black markets and after travelling. Even if followed more literally, it would still take over forty years to almost eliminate the effects of smoking.

19

I think the implementation is a bit arbitrary and sort of rubs me wrong. I would more like to see it more along the lines of by prescription only, or some permit which cost money.

20

I think that’s true for substances with a real kick, but smoking doesn’t have the high that cocaine, heroin, weed, and alcohol have. It’s already taboo to smoke socially, since it’s banned indoors about everywhere. I doubt there will be a significant black market.

Nicotine addiction was just about gone from my kids’ high school, and then Juul and other vaping devices came along and readdicted another generation. Terrible timing.