By 2025: New Zealand wants to be smoke-free

New Zealand has passed an unprecedented anti-smoking law. The aim is to make the country smoke-free by 2025. Younger generations will never be allowed to buy cigarettes.

Tasmyn Breuker-Brown, 13, will never be able to legally buy cigarettes in New Zealand in her life. Like everyone born after 2008. This is what the new “Smokefree 2025” law against smoking says.

New Zealand wants to prevent future generations from starting to smoke in the first place. And Tasmyn thinks that’s perfectly fine: “I think if people are free to choose, they’re not making responsible choices when it comes to smoking. They smoke too much. The new law is good.”

New Zealand’s goal: by 2025, fewer than five percent of the people should smoke. This would make the country the first country in the world to be considered smoke-free. At the moment, according to government figures, it is still eight percent. The numbers have been steadily declining lately.

Pioneer for decades

New Zealand has been a global pioneer in its anti-smoking policies for decades. Smoking indoors in workplaces was banned as early as 1990, followed by bars and restaurants in 2004. Taxes on cigarettes have increased by 165 percent since 2010. Cigarette and tobacco prices are among the highest in the world. A pack of cigarettes costs the equivalent of around 23 euros. Only in Australia is it even more expensive.

But New Zealand is not enough. The new law will force cigarette companies to reduce the nicotine content from today’s up to 15 milligrams per gram of tobacco to 0.8 milligrams per gram of tobacco. According to experts, this is below the limit at which cigarettes can make you dependent at all.

“It’s a big step”

The new law is a matter close to the heart of Science Minister Ayesha Verrall. She is also a doctor. “It’s a big step. Tobacco has been here since New Zealand was colonized. It has caused so much human suffering,” she says. “It kills half of all users.”

According to them, 4,500 to 5,000 New Zealanders still die every year as a result of smoking. “No preventable disease is causing more deaths in New Zealand. It’s important to get rid of that.”

According to statistics, seven out of nine smokers regret their step, but cannot get rid of it. The concept therefore also includes more money for withdrawal programs and self-help groups.

Smoking rates are three times higher than the national average, especially among Maori. Lung cancer is the leading cause of death among Maori women. That was also the case with Victoria Whare’s mother, who started smoking herself at the age of eleven: “I saw my mother first get sick and then die,” says the 46-year-old. That shaped her whole life. “My father used to say to us, ‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke. Your mother died from it.’ He smoked himself.”

More crime because of high prices?

Kiosk operator Eusief Mhasnieh sees things differently. He stores cigarettes and tobacco securely in a cabinet with multiple locks. He’s been broken into several times. High cigarette and tobacco prices encourage crime and black market trafficking, he says. However, according to the government, the illegal import of cigarettes is a minor problem because of New Zealand’s island status.

In the future, according to the law, there should only be 500 instead of 8,000 certified sales outlets nationwide. Cigarettes are said to be more difficult to obtain. Kiosk operator Mhasnieh, who smokes himself, fears for the loss of income and thinks the government is going too far: “You can’t tell me what I have to do and what I can’t do. It’s my freedom to do what I want if it’s not against me breaking the law. My freedom, my choice.”

But the new law is not cold turkey. There should be no penalties for smoking. That’s not prohibition, says Minister Verrall. E-cigarettes should be alternatives.

Even the smokers are for it

In New Zealand there is a lot of support for the decision, according to surveys, even half of the smokers are in favor of it.

Internationally, New Zealand’s initiative is being observed with great interest. Other countries like Malaysia want to follow the example soon and are already planning similar laws.