Blunt instruments preferred

With the tax on tobacco increased a further 10 percent in New Zealand this month, one of the country’s major supermarket chains has started selling electronic cigarettes, according to a story in The New Zealand Herald.
Progressive Enterprises, which owns Countdown, FreshChoice and SuperValue supermarkets, confirmed it had been trialing the sale of e-cigarettes without nicotine in 20 of its stores around the country since December 20.
The Herald said the move could be a major step toward making the sale of e-cigarettes mainstream in New Zealand.
According to the Ministry of Health, selling non-nicotine e-cigarettes is legal.
The sale of nicotine-based products for e-cigarettes is currently illegal, though they are widely available and their status is under review by the government.
The new Labor-led government has continued the previous administration’s policy of an annual increase in excise tax on tobacco in support of its Smoke-free 2025 initiative.
The Ministry of Health said it believed increasing the price of tobacco was the single most effective measure to reduce tobacco consumption.