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Combining short-acting nicotine replacement therapy with varenicline increases smoking cessation rates compared with varenicline alone, but not all people tolerate these medications or find them helpful. We aim to investigate the therapeutic potential of an analogous combination, by evaluating the effectiveness, safety, and acceptability of combining nicotine salt e-cigarettes with cytisine, compared to nicotine salt e-cigarettes or cytisine only, on smoking abstinence at six months.

THE DECLINE IN SMOKING is 4-8 times slower in Australia than in New Zealand, Great Britain and the US over the last 4 years. Why? Australia has the highest cigarette prices in the world, plain packaging and extensive smokefree laws. However, Australia effectively bans the most successful quitting aid available: vaping nicotine. Vaping is readily and legally available in other western countries and is a major contributor to the accelerated decline in smoking

The Ministry of Health has admitted it incorrectly threatened vape retailers for selling non-compliant products. In October 2022, in response to an inquiry from Fair Go, the ministry took the position that the smokefree regulations prescribed a maximum nicotine salt strength of 50mg/mL (28.5mg/mL nicotine strength) and threatened to cancel all products that did not comply. However, the regulations actually set the maximum nicotine strength limit of 50mg/mL.

(...) according to Ministry of Health data provided by the Official Information Act, fewer than 100 infringement notices have been issued to e-cigarette retailers since enforcement last year, resulting in a total of $42,900 in fines.

New Zealand is on target to becoming smoke-free by 2025. This means being cigarette and tobacco free and that's where vaping comes in. For long-term adult smokers, it's seen as a less harmful alternative but the flipside to that is the exponential rise and accessibility of vaping to teenagers and at times younger children.

According to data released last year, the number of teenagers in New Zealand who vaped regularly had tripled between 2019 and 2021.

FORTY FIVE LEADING TOBACCO TREATMENT, public health and addiction experts from Australia and New Zealand are urging lawmakers to listen to the Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ANACAD) ahead of Health Minister Mark Butler’s proposed vaping crackdown. In a letter sent to all state, territory and federal members of parliament today, Tuesday 18 July 2023, the experts fully endorsed the Council’s concerns about the proposed regulations

The Coalition of Asia Pacific Tobacco Harm Reduction Advocates (CAPHRA) is calling on the New Zealand government to reject Australia’s approach to vaping and continue to follow the science and evidence. 

CAPHRA has submitted comments on New Zealand’s proposals for the smoked tobacco regulatory regime, which include tightening current restrictions on vaping product safety requirements and packaging and reducing nicotine levels in disposable vapes as well as restricting the location of specialist vape retailers.

Health officials are proposing to change vape rules to set a maximum limit of 28mg/mL on the amount of actual nicotine a vape can contain, but the way Manatū Hauora, the Ministry of Health is going about it has triggered a fightback campaign from vape sellers and raised alarm among some health advocates. Last week, Manatū Hauoura launched a low-key, two-week submission process with a link to a survey. After questions from Fair Go, it has updated its reasons today.

The Asthma & Respiratory Foundation says many stakeholders had no idea this was underway and that the proposal would create three different levels of nicotine for vapes, sowing yet more confusion.

On the streets of Ōtāhuhu in South Auckland, you don’t have to look far for a nicotine fix.

Its small shopping centre is home to 8 vape stores – two of them are side by side.

It’s a pattern repeated all over the country. The higher the deprivation of an area, the more specialist vape retailers it has.

A Sunday investigation has found nearly 10 times as many e-cigarette outlets in our lowest income communities as there are in the most well-off.

Health researcher Lucy Hardie has been studying the vape industry’s marketing strategies.

Smokefree New Zealand is intrinsically linked to providing smokers with products containing the right nicotine levels to help them quit. The 2021 regulations imposed a nicotine strength cap of 50mg/ml nicotine strength, which has been vital in assisting smokers with readily accessible products in market that deliver a similar level of nicotine to cigarettes. We have had tremendous success with reduction in tobacco smoking rates due to the strength of vaping products readily available in market and according to Action for Smokefree 2023 (ASH), in the past six years vaping has contributed to the drop in the number of New Zealanders smoking daily from 14.5% to 8% for adults and 1% for young people.