New Zealand on Tuesday legislated the world's first lifetime ban on the sale of cigarettes to young generations, a milestone in the Pacific country's ambitious pursuit to make it "smoke-free" by 2025.
Under the new legislation, people born in 2009 or after will never be able to purchase tobacco legally in their lifetime, as the legal smoking age will rise every year from 18.
"Today will go down in history as the day the government guaranteed a healthier, smoke-free future for the next generation of New Zealanders," Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said in a press release.
The legislation also introduces two other major policies aimed at eliminating smoking in the country by 2025. The number of retailers allowed to sell smoked tobacco products will be drastically reduced from some 6,000 to 600 by the end of next year, and virtually all nicotine will be removed from smoked tobacco products, with the government mandating very low levels of the highly addictive substance.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said it was a "huge" moment for the nation, local news outlet Stuff reported.
"I hope New Zealand feels really proud of what's happening here in parliament...and the smoke-free generation that is hugely innovative," she said.
The bill passed 76 to 43 votes on Tuesday evening, and will come into effect in January.
The new laws will impose fines of up to NZ$150,000 ($95,800) for selling tobacco to those born from 2009 onward, or NZ$50,000 for supplying to those age groups.
Though New Zealand is believed to be the first to legislate such measures on a countrywide level, communities across the globe have implemented similar measures to varying degrees of success in recent years.
The town of Brookline in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, a wealthy suburb just outside Boston, introduced a bylaw in September 2021 that forever prohibits anyone born after 1999 from purchasing tobacco and vape products, effectively creating a smoke-free circuit-breaker akin to New Zealand's.
Data released November shows New Zealand's adult smoking rate is relatively low at 9.2 percent, but large disparities in smoking prevalence and smoking-induced harm exist between the wider population and the country's indigenous Maori and Pacific Islander populations.
The smoking rate among Maori adults is more than double the national rate at 20.9 percent, and the prevalence among Pacific Islanders is also significantly higher at 18.9 percent.
Smoking is currently the leading cause of preventable death among New Zealand's population of 5 million and causes one in four cancers nationwide.
The new laws, however, will not restrict the sale of vapes, or e-cigarettes, which have been marketed in New Zealand as a tool to aid those trying to quit the more harmful habit of smoking.
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