Wellington: The New Zealand government intends to ban the sale of cigarettes for future generations of the nation. With a significant outlook, the government plans to get its smoking population under 5% by 2025.
The latest legislation designates that New Zealanders aged 14 or under will be prohibited from purchasing tobacco, including grown-ups.
The lawful smoking age will be increased each year. Every year, a new age group will be added to the ban list until the nation is entirely smoke-free.
The latest legislation was announced on December 9, 2021. New Zealand's associate health minister, Ayesha Verrall, made the announcement and branded it a "historic day for the health of our people".
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"We desire to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to trade or provide smoked tobacco items to new affiliates of youth. People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally purchase tobacco," Dr Verrall stated.
"We are furthermore dropping the request, addictiveness and availability of smoked tobacco products."
She further stated, "While smoking rate are heading in the right path, we ought to do more, quicker to achieve our goal."
The New Zealand government will even limit the number of stores authorised to market tobacco products, with merely 500 shops nationwide will be allocated a licence to sell cigarettes.
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