Smoking in New Zealand
In New Zealand, smoking is legal but subject to tobacco control regulations. Cigarettes are regulated as tobacco products and can be sold through retail outlets, including online sales and vending machines. The importation of cigarettes for trade is allowed with a trade license. Health warnings on packaging are mandatory, the legal minimum age for purchase is 18 years, and smoking in public places is subject to legal restrictions. A comprehensive ban on tobacco advertising is also in place. Cigarettes in New Zealand are taxed at a total rate of 82.78%, including an excise component of 69.74%. Data show that in 2024, the number of current smokers was recorded to be approximately 364,000 in New Zealand, corresponding to an adult smoking prevalence of 8.6%. In the same year, current smoking prevalence was slightly higher among males (9.7%) than among females (7.7%). In 2022, this prevalence was recorded to be 11.4%. In 2023, the adult daily tobacco smoking prevalence was reported to be 7.7%, with approximately 362,845 daily smokers. In 2021, smoking led to approximately 3,580 deaths in New Zealand, including 2,085 deaths among males and 1,495 deaths among females. In other words, tobacco smoking accounted for 10.38% of all deaths in the country in 2021, including11.78% of all male deaths and 8.9% of all female deaths.
Read articles from New Zealand
February 16, 2024 by filtermag.org
Australia’s Vape Prohibition Replicates Drug-War Disasters
Australia's stringent anti-vaping stance has resulted in a thriving illicit market for vaping products, echoing the failures of drug bans in the past. Over 90% of Australia's 1.7 million adult vapers have turned to the illicit market due to harsh restrictions that require a nicotine prescription to vape legally. The illicit market in Australia is estimated to import 120 million unregulated vapes from China annually, with products sold openly without consumer protections. The profitability of illegal vapes has led to an intensifying turf war among organized trafficking networks, resulting in acts of violence and exploitation of marginalized recruits.
February 14, 2024 by colinmendelsohn.com.au
New Zealand expert advises Australian policymakers on vaping
DURING A WEEK-LONG VISIT TO AUSTRALIA, Action for Smokefree 2025 (ASH) has been engaging with Australian policymakers to develop a best-practice vaping regulatory framework. Smoking and vaping policies were very similar in Australia and New Zealand until 2020 when the four major political parties in New Zealand accepted vaping as an important tool to accelerate the decline in smoking rates. Since 2020, New Zealand has had a regulated vaping market that allowed a wide range of vapes to be sold as adult consumer products.
February 01, 2024 by 1news.co.nz
Health experts want ministers to disclose tobacco industry links
Public health experts are calling on the Government to be totally transparent on any past or present dealings its MPs have had with tobacco companies. The coalition is set to repeal the previous government's smokefree legislation, which would have banned the sale of tobacco to anyone born from January 1, 2009; cut the number of retailers; and de-nicotinised cigarettes. The Government is vowing to still meet Smokefree 2025 targets, but reasons it gave for repealing the previous legislation included that it could lead to a rise in crime and a tobacco black market.
January 26, 2024 by 1news.co.nz
Tax Freeze for Cigarettes in NZ First Minister's Plans
NZ First's Associate Health Minister Casey Costello has a lot of ideas about the regulation of tobacco - many of them will be controversial.
January 26, 2024 by kiwiblog.co.nz
ASH Says Current Policies Working to Make Smoke Free Target
Our decline in smoking in the past four years is extraordinary – equivalent to what took two decades to achieve. New Zealand has recently had some of the most dramatic decreases in smoking in the world, including for Māori and highly deprived groups.
January 26, 2024 by kiwiblog.co.nz
ASH Says Current Policies Working to Make Smoke Free Target
Our decline in smoking in the past four years is extraordinary – equivalent to what took two decades to achieve. New Zealand has recently had some of the most dramatic decreases in smoking in the world, including for Māori and highly deprived groups.
January 26, 2024 by rnz.co.nz
Health Advocates, Opposition Slam Associate Health Minister Casey Costello's Proposed Tax Freeze
Anti-smoking advocates and politicians are taking aim at Associate Health Minister Casey Costello after RNZ revealed she was looking into a three-year freeze on a tobacco tax.
January 18, 2024 by theconversation.com
Reducing nicotine in tobacco would help people quit – without prohibiting cigarettes
Supporters of the new government’s plan to repeal Aotearoa New Zealand’s smokefree legislation have claimed victory against “prohibition”. Introduced under Jacinda Ardern’s government, the smokefree law came into effect in January 2023 and included a commitment to introduce mandated “denicotinisation” (cutting the nicotine to levels that are no longer addictive) of smoked tobacco products. Studies estimated this measure would have greatly reduced smoking and helped prevent avoidable death and suffering. However, opponents, notably the tobacco industry and its allies, criticised the measure as “prohibition”.
January 11, 2024 by colinmendelsohn.com.au
New Zealand well on track to be smokefree next year
Almost a quarter of a million fewer Kiwis are now smoking daily, and it puts us in a tiny club of countries that have smoking rates under 7 per cent. What we have in common with these successful countries is people switching from smoked tobacco to less harmful alternatives. To reach the smoking goal of 5 per cent or less (that is, 95 per cent or more of all adults being “smokefree”), around 100,000 smokers need to quit over the next two years. Our decline in smoking in the last four years is extraordinary - equivalent to what took two decades to achieve. The unprecedented progress shown in the New Zealand Health Survey should have been a cause to celebrate. [...]
January 09, 2024 by youtube.com
Prof. Marewa Glover Comments On New Zealand Scrapping The World-First Smoking 'Generation Ban'
We sit down with Prof. Marewa Glover to discuss the recent THR news from New Zealand.