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
March 02, 2022 by 1news.co.nz
Teen smoking rates fall to all time low, vaping increases
Smoking rates among 13 and 14-year-olds have fallen to a record low while vaping has risen, according to the 2021 ASH (Action for Smokefree 2025) Year 10 Survey. The study found the number of year 10 students who smoke cigarettes daily has dropped from around two per cent in 2019, to 1.3 per cent in 2021.
In December last year, a survey carried out by the Ministry of Health showed the proportion of all New Zealanders smoking dropped from 11.9 per cent in the 2019-2020 survey to 9.4 per cent in 2021.
February 24, 2022 by tbsnews.net
New Zealand PM: ‘We know that vaping is making a difference’
Talking about a recent legislation that will bar people aged 14 and under to legally buy tobacco, the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern acknowledged that vaping can be an effective tool to help smokers quit.
The New Zealand prime minister said that continuing to raise tobacco prices will not continue to help people stop smoking and that is why there is a need for alternative ways. She said that the best way to reduce smoking rate would be if people don't take up smoking in the first place.
February 13, 2022 by vapingpost.com
New Zealand’s New Vape Flavour Restricions Will Increase Smoking Rates
With the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Act going into force, New Zealand’s general retailers including service stations, supermarkets and convenience stores, are only allowed to to sell three vape flavours: menthol, mint, and tobacco.
“It’s crazy that Kiwis desperate to quit cigarettes can walk into a service station and buy any cigarette brand under the sun. They can’t, however, access the most popular vapes flavours. It makes no sense when vaping has been proven to be 95% less harmful than smoking,” said Jonathan Devery, co-owner of the largest Kiwi-owned vape companies, Alt New Zealand and VAPO.
December 15, 2021 by thespinoff.co.nz
I smoked for 20 years. I desperately wish there’d been a cigarette ban
I can not, however, pinpoint the moment that I decided to start smoking cigarettes because I don’t believe I ever did. It just happened. I was 18-ish and had smoked socially at parties. I don’t remember buying my first packet but at some point, I morphed into the person who would always let you bum a smoke. I liked that about myself at the time but an affectation soon became a habit and a full blown addiction. The accidental nature of how I became a smoker is one of the strongest reasons I support the latest announcement from the government to gradually increase the legal age at which someone can buy cigarettes and to regulate where you can buy them from. [...]
December 14, 2021 by filtermag.org
Desperate to Win the Smokefree Race, New Zealand Resorts to Prohibition
Bhutan was the first country to ban the import and sale of tobacco, in 2004. But New Zealand is held up as the country to watch.
In the global race to eliminate tobacco smoking, New Zealand was first out of the stalls with its 1990 Smoke-free Environments Act. The law banned smoking inside public buildings such as schools, in workplaces and on public transportation. It extended restrictions on advertising and established an agency to replace tobacco-industry event sponsorship It remains a milestone achievement that the law became an exemplar during the writing of the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
December 09, 2021 by health.govt.nz
Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan
The culmination of many years of hard mahi, the plan will accelerate our progress towards a smokefree future and tackle the harm smoked tobacco products cause the people of New Zealand.
Many organisations, services, advocates, academics, researchers, community champions, individuals and whānau have played an important part in getting us here.
While smoking rates are heading in the right direction, we still have more work to do. We must move away from a business-as-usual approach and try something new. No one single intervention will help us to achieve a smokefree 2025. It will take a multi-faceted approach and evidence-based measures to stamp out smoking.
November 25, 2021 by scoop.co.nz
Smokefree Cars - One Step Closer To Smokefree 2025
On Sunday 28 November any car carrying people under the age of 18 must be smokefree.
Smokefree cars are yet another step in the move to achieve the Smokefree 2025 goal. New Zealand continues to have some of the most advanced smokefree policies in the world. Other recent steps taken have included plain packaging of cigarettes, a retail display ban, and progressive vaping legislation that supports vaping use as a quit smoking tool. The smokefree cars ban will greatly diminish the health hazard of second-hand smoke while young people are in cars.
October 20, 2021 by thespinoff.co.nz
Make cigarettes nicotine-free and we’ll stub out smoking for good
A game-changing move to make cigarettes non-addictive will be a decisive nail in the coffin of smoking harm in New Zealand, write professors of public health Richard Edwards and Chris Bullen.
Big tobacco has long known it is in the nicotine delivery business. The addictive substance grabs new customers and ensures they get trapped in a purchasing loop even as ill-health takes hold.
Associate minister of health Ayesha Verrall’s Smokefree Action Plan sets to change that by making New Zealand the first country to slash nicotine levels in cigarettes.
October 19, 2021 by medicalxpress.com
Vaping with nicotine more common than smoking among NZ teens
More than a third of New Zealand high school students have tried vaping, with 10 percent vaping regularly and six percent vaping weekly or more often, researchers have found. The study [...] reflects the situation before the Government banned the sale of vaping products to under 18-year-olds and prohibited e-cigarette marketing late last year.
Researcher Dr. Jude Ball, from the University of Otago, Wellington, says the study highlights the importance of getting the balance right between making it easy for adult smokers to switch to less harmful vaping, while protecting young non-smokers.
October 08, 2021 by scoop.co.nz
New Survey Reveals WHO At Odds With Kiwi Vapers
More than two thirds of vapers believe New Zealand’s approach to vaping as a tobacco harm reduction tool is world-leading and should be promoted overseas to save millions of lives, according to a new survey conducted by research house IRI.
The New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union has released this research an anticipation of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Conference (COP9) this November.
The IRI survey, conducted in September, asked more than 500 Kiwi vapers what they thought of New Zealand’s use of vaping as a tool to help smokers quit. Over 80 per cent said vaping had helped them to reduce or quit smoking. [...]