New Zealand’s plan to ban future generations from ever being able to buy cigarettes is not without risks.
When New Zealand announced its plans last December to ban the sale of cigarettes to future generations, the first country in the world to do so, it grabbed the attention of the whole world.
The sales ban was but one of the measures the government announced to reduce the smoking prevalence in New Zealand to less than 5% by 2025 and making the country smoke-free. Other measures included reducing the number of shops allowed to sell cigarettes starting in 2024, to be followed by lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes in 2025. The ban on cigarette sales itself, which raises the legal smoking age from the current 18, will not come into effect until 2027, and will affect those who are born after 2008. The smoking age will be raised every following year, in effect preventing future generations from ever buying cigarettes.
While lauded by the public health and anti-tobacco sectors, many felt that this was a draconian measure, a stark contrast to the more liberal direction many policies have taken recently, such as policies regarding cannabis, for example. Even Bhutan, which was long considered to have the strictest anti-tobacco laws, changed its stance. In 2004 Bhutan became the first country to implement a nationwide ban on tobacco sales in all forms as well as a ban on smoking in all public places. Then, the 2010 Tobacco Control Act banned the cultivation, manufacturing, and trade of tobacco products but still allowed smokers to import controlled amounts of tobacco products, albeit after paying heavy taxes (100% sales tax and 100% customs tax if the individual was bringing in tobacco products from third countries.) However, since July 2, 2021, the Tobacco Control (Amendment) Act came into effect, allowing the sales, distribution, buying, possessing, and transportation of tobacco and tobacco products, but not the production and manufacturing. The 100% sales tax on tobacco and tobacco products was also done away with.
While New Zealand may be the first country to go to such an extreme measure, a Boston suburb actually started implementing an age-based tobacco ban last September. In Brookline, Massachusetts (population: 60,000), anyone born after January 1, 2000 will never be able to buy tobacco or vape products, even though if they are 21 or older, they can do so anywhere else in the state.
All that glitters is not gold
Whether it’s in Brookline or in New Zealand, it remains to be seen how effective these age-based bans will be. In the meantime, what can already be seen is that these bans take away people’s right to choose, the most basic level of autonomy that most adults enjoy that allow us to make personal choices, deciding what we are willing to do or not do, risk or not risk, and for what return.
And, as with other bans, prohibiting something adds to its allure. Forbidden fruit has long tempted us humans. If those young people are not allowed to purchase tobacco or tobacco products legally, where else would they go aside from the black market? This will just benefit illicit trade, increasing the risk of buyers getting low-quality, dangerous products which in turn would have even more detrimental health effects to smokers. The illicit tobacco trade is already flourishing in New Zealand due to high taxes, as well as many other countries. This ban for entire future generations can only help it grow even more lucrative to smugglers and organized crime.
Early adopters?
Singapore and Malaysia are both considering adopting a smoking ban for the next generation similar to that of New Zealand’s.
Malaysian health minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, announced he will table a new Tobacco and Smoking Control Act in the upcoming parliament meeting during February 28-March 24. The new bill will replace current tobacco product control legislations and will also regulate e-cigarettes and vapes. In addition, it will also enforce what Jamaluddin calls “a generational end-game” for smoking.
“To me, the allocation for this generational end-game must be created to ensure that there comes a time when the new generations in this country will no longer know what a cigarette is,” said Khairy in a new year message to the ministry of health. “…this allocation will enable smoking to be phased out in stages until one day in future, Malaysia will be a smoke-free country.”
No proposed date for the ban or the year of birth for people who would be affected by the ban has been announced.
In Singapore, senior minister of state for health, Koh Poh Koon, said the government is open to the idea of a cohort smoking ban and will study New Zealand’s ban to see how New Zealand implements the ban, its effectiveness, and how it might be applied to Singapore.
However, he cautioned that a few considerations would need to be taken into account. One is that young Singaporeans are generally not taking up smoking, unlike in other countries. “Our youths today no longer see smoking as glamorous, and are aware of its harms,” he said. Instead, the bigger concern is e-cigarettes. “If vaping becomes entrenched among the younger generation, it undoes all the progress we have made on curbing smoking, and will take an enormous effort over many years to curb its use,” said Koh, also pointing out that while New Zealand is banning smoking, it promotes vaping as an alternative. While Malaysia and Singapore are considering adopting a similar ban, New Zealand is promoting vaping as a less harmful alternative that successfully helps people stop smoking, while Singapore firmly prohibits it and consumer products containing nicotine are still illegal in Malaysia, although the Malaysian government is planning to regulate and tax vape products.
According to Koh, the most effective measure to reduce the smoking rate in Singapore is increased tobacco tax. New Zealand has a different outlook on increasing tobacco taxes, though, saying that increasing tobacco taxes any higher would unfairly penalize the poor and, quoting Ayesha Verrall, New Zealand’s associate health minister, “further punish smokers struggling to kick the habit.”
A ban that is so prohibitive as this age-based ban does not seem to be much better for people, though. It seems the New Zealand government, along with governments of other countries readying to jump on this bandwagon, are crossing a line. Instead of issuing regulations that have the ultimate goal of safety and minimizing harm, they are choosing to infringe on people’s basic rights and order them how to live.