New Zealand Splits Opinion by Scrapping Smoking Ban

New Zealand’s new coalition government plans to abandon the country’s world-first policy of an incremental smoking ban, in order to fund tax cuts. Just as the original policy divided expert opinion, so has news of its repeal. [...] Proponents said that this and other measures in the package, like reducing the number of tobacco retailers by 90 percent and cutting the legal amount of nicotine in cigarettes, would help the country reach its goal of being “smokefree” (prevalence below 5 percent) by 2025. No similar restrictions were imposed on vape sales.