The New Zealand government plans to ban young people from previously buying cigarettes in their lives in one of the toughest oppression in the world in the tobacco industry, on the grounds that other efforts to extinguish too long.
14-year-old people in 2027, when the law is scheduled to take effect, it will not be allowed to buy cigarettes legally in the Pacific state of five million, while the level of nicotine in all smoking sold will be reduced.
“We want to make sure young people have never started smoking so we will make it a violation to sell or supply smoke tobacco products to a new youth group,” said the New Zealand Region Minister Ayesha Verrall in a statement.
The government will consult with the Maori Health Task Force in the coming months before introducing law to parliament in June next year, with the aim of making laws at the end of 2022.
It will make the New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry, one of the most limited in the world , right behind Bhutan where cigarette sales are prohibited directly.
The neighbor of New Zealand Australia is the first country in the world to rely on plain cigarette packaging in 2012.
While the steps such as plain packaging and levies on cigarette sales have slowed tobacco consumption, the New Zealand government said, the country could not reach its goal below 5% of the smoking population every day in 2025 without further steps.