New Zealand is planning to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime, in a bid to make the country smoke free by 2025.
Anyone born after 2008 will not be able to buy cigarettes or tobacco products in the Pacific country, under a law expected to be enacted next year. The move will also curb the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and cut nicotine levels in all products.
“We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth,” New Zealand Associate Minister of Health Ayesha Verrall said in a statement on Thursday.
According to government figures, currently, 11.6% of all New Zealanders aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that rises to 29% among indigenous Maori adults.
The New Zealand government will introduce legislation into parliament in June next year, with the aim of making it law by the end of 2022.
The New Zealand government said while existing measures like plain packaging and levies on sales had slowed tobacco consumption, the tougher steps were necessary to achieve its goal of fewer than 5% of the population smoking daily by 2025.
Smoking kills about 5,000 people a year in New Zealand, making it one of the country’s top causes of preventable death.
