Health Concern! New Zealand to ban youth from buying Cigarettes
New Delhi: The Government of New Zealand will prohibit the selling of cigarettes to the youth in the country. In one of the toughest crackdowns on tobacco, the wellington government on Thursday announced its plan to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime.
Ayesha Verrall – Health Minister of New Zealand said that “We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offense to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth,”
“If nothing changes, it would be decades till Māori smoking rates fall below 5 percent, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind,” she added.
As per the report citing government figures, 11.6 percent of all New Zealanders aged above 15 smoke, the proportion rises to 29 percent among indigenous Maori adults. The New Zealand government will consult with a Maori health task force before introducing legislation into parliament in June next year.
The government has taken to this step as other efforts to curb smoking were taking too long. Proposals unveiled on Thursday revealed that people aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in the country and that there will also be restrictions on the number of retailers authorized to sell tobacco and permitted nicotine levels in all products.
With these measures, New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry will become one of the most restricted in the world – second only to Bhutan where cigarette sales are banned.
Like New Zealand, the United Kingdom has set goals to go smoke-free by 2030 while Canada and Sweden have targets to bring down smoking prevalence to less than 5% of their populations.
(_Vinayak)
