Tag: New Zealand

Study: Nicotine Mandate Could Reduce Smoking

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Requiring cigarette manufacturers to significantly reduce the nicotine content of their products could dramatically reduce smoking rates in New Zealand, reports Stuff, citing a new study published in The New Zealand Medical Journal.
In December, New Zealand unveiled an ambitious tobacco control plan that in addition to gradually raising the smoking age until it covers the entire population, includes a reduced nicotine mandate. New Zealand aims to reduce its smoking levels across to below 5 percent of the population by 2025.
Mandating about 95 percent less nicotine in cigarettes could have a “plausible chance” of achieving the Government’s Smokefree 2025 goals, wrote Professor Nick Wilson and colleagues from the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago, Wellington.
Wilson was relaxed about the anticipated uptick in vaping and illicit trade following such a mandate. Vaping is “substantially less harmful” than smoking and New Zealand’s remote location would offer some protection against cigarette smuggling, he noted.
Assuming a full ban on nicotine was implemented on March 1, 2023, Wilson and his colleagues predicted the smoking initiation among 18–24-year-olds would reduce by 75 percent due to the nonaddictive nature of the denicotinised tobacco. That would translate into an annual reduction of about 6,500 smokers.
Among older established smokers, the researchers assume that 33 percent would quit each year in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
Such a “relatively high rate” of quitting could be sustained because low nicotine tobacco is not addictive and the “growing denormalisation of smoking,” according to the researchers.
February 21, 2022
Singapore Studying New Zealand’s Tobacco Plan

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Singapore’s health authorities are debating whether to follow in the footsteps of New Zealand by gradually raising the smoking age until it covers the entire population, reports The Straits Times.
On Jan. 8, New Zealand unveiled a plan to phase out smoking through price hikes, nicotine limits and increasing age restrictions, among other measures.
On Jan. 11, Minister of State for Health Koh Poh Koon told Parliament he would look at how New Zealand’s experience could be applicable in Singapore.
Singapore is unlikely to copy New Zealand’s embrace of vaping as an alternative to smoking, however. “If vaping becomes entrenched among the younger generation, it undoes all the progress we made on curbing smoking, and will take an enormous effort over many years to curb its use,” said Koh.
While e-cigarettes are banned in the city state, they are readily available through e-commerce, according to Koh.
Smoking prevalence in Singapore fell from 11.8 percent in 2017 to 10.1 percent in 2020. The city state introduced standardized packaging and enhanced graphic health warnings in 2020 and raised the minimum legal age for smoking from 19 years to 21 years in January 2021.
As a result of such measures, smoking among adults aged 18 to 29 decreased from 9.8 percent in 2017 to 8.8 percent in 2020, according to Koh
Smoking and second-hand smoke exposure accounted for about $180 million of healthcare costs in Singapore in 2019, he noted.
January 12, 2022
New Zealand: Smoking Down More Than Usual

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Smoking rates have decreased more than usual, reports NZ Herald, citing a recent government health survey.
In 2020–2021, smoking rates decreased across all ethnic groups. For Maori adults, smoking was down 6.4 percent to 22.3 percent compared to 28.7 percent in 2019/2020.
Deborah Hart, director of Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), says that the decline is due to the smoke-free initiatives put in place, including plain packaging and taxes on cigarettes.
Vaping rates have increased by 3.5 percent compared to 0.9 percent in 2015/2016. A study by ASH and the University of Auckland showed that daily use of e-cigarettes is occurring overwhelmingly in existing smokers.
“What we’re seeing is people transition from very harmful cigarette smoking to a much less harmful product in e-cigarettes or vaping, and that’s been going on for a few years, and we’re going to continue to see that, I would think,” Hart said.
Youth smoking is down 8.1 percent from 12.9 percent the previous year, according to the study.
January 5, 2022
Glover: Kiwi Tobacco Rules Hurt Minorities
Marewa Glover
New Zealand’s new tobacco rules will likely have harsh consequences for indigenous Māori and other minority groups, according to Marewa Glover, founder and director of the Centre of Research Excellence: Indigenous Sovereignty & Smoking.
On Dec. 9, New Zealand announced a raft of new measures to help achieve its Smokefree 2025 goal. The legislation includes a plan to gradually raise the age at which people can purchase tobacco until it covers all age groups. Children now aged 13 and below face a lifetime ban on legally buying tobacco.
The new law will introduce a licensing system for tobacco retailers, reducing the number approved to 5-10 percent of the current estimated outlets. It bans filters and flavors, and seeks to cap cigarette nicotine to levels that are unsatisfying for smokers dependent on the substance.
Writing in Filter, Glover says Māori will be disproportionally affected because they have significantly higher rates of daily smoking (22.3 percent) than New Zealanders of European ancestry (8 percent).
“Illicit markets will scale up to fill the void where there should be a regulated market,” says Glover. “Competition over such markets can bring violence, and Māori, heavily overrepresented among lower-income groups with the highest smoking rates, will bear the brunt. The government response to illicit sales will mean criminalization and arrests, further swelling the grossly disproportionate numbers of Māori who are incarcerated.”
Meanwhile, New Zealand’s sizable Indian and Asian communities will be hurt economically by the new rules, as they own the majority of the small retail businesses that sell tobacco, according to Glover. “When raised tobacco taxes made cigarettes unaffordable for a large proportion of people who smoked, we saw a surge in aggravated robberies of such stores, in an illustration of ignored unintended consequences.”
Glover argues that, in pursuing smoke-free objectives, a legal reduced-risk product market is more effective than prohibition and punishment.
December 17, 2021
New Zealand to Phase Out Cigarette Sales

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New Zealand unveiled a plan on Dec. 8 to phase out smoking by gradually raising the smoking age until it covers the entire population. The proposed legislation is expected to become law next year and health activists are hoping it will inspire other countries to follow suit.
Starting in 2023, anyone under age 15 would be barred for life from buying cigarettes under the new rules. This would mean, for example, that in 2050, people under the age of 42 would not be able to buy tobacco products.
“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,” Ayesha Verrall, the country’s associate health minister, said in Parliament on Thursday. “People aged 14 when the law comes into effect will never be able to legally purchase tobacco.”
The legislation was among several proposals, including a reduced nicotine mandate, announced on Thursday that aim to reduce smoking levels in New Zealand across all ethnic groups, below 5 percent by 2025. Currently the rate is just under 10 percent. Since announcing this target in 2011, New Zealand has steadily raised the price of cigarettes to among the highest in the world. A pack in New Zealand costs about NZD30 ($20.35), second only to Australia.

This is prohibition in all but name, and prohibition very rarely works.
Simon Clark, Director, Forest
Smokers’ rights campaigners described New Zealand’s plans as “absurd” and “illiberal.”
“This is prohibition in all but name and prohibition very rarely works,” said Simon Clark, director of the smokers’ group Forest.
“If tobacco is made illegal to people born after 2008 it won’t stop younger generations smoking. The sale of tobacco will simply be driven underground, and consumers will buy tobacco on the unregulated black market. The impact of this policy will hit nonsmokers as well because the government will have to replace lost revenue by taxing something else,” said Clark.
While unveiling its proposal, the government acknowledged the possible effects on the black market, which currently makes up at least 10 percent of tobacco sales in the country.
Robert Beaglehole, a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Auckland, suggested the problem was manageable. “We can deal with it, if we only scanned every container coming into the country, which we don’t,” he said.
Fear of smuggling and concern about civil liberties have prevented other countries from banning tobacco sales. In 2010, Bhutan prohibited the sale of tobacco products, only to suspend the restrictions last year amid worries that cigarette traffickers would bring in the coronavirus.

It’s a shame our vaping regulations are not proportionate to the lack of risk, compared to combustible tobacco.
Nancy Loucas, co-founder, Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy
While welcoming New Zealand’s action against smoking, tobacco harm reduction advocates said were disappointed the plan ignored the role of vapor products as a tool to help smokers quit cigarettes.
“Vaping has been key to reducing our national smoking rate,”said Nancy Loucas, co-founder of the Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA). “Encouraging more smokers to switch to much safer and less expensive nicotine alternatives is critical to achieving smokefree. Sadly, on that score, the just-released Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan fails to acknowledge this fact.”
According to Loucas, New Zealand has made it harder for adults to access vaping products in recent months.
“It makes total sense to reduce the availability of tobacco products, but it made no sense to reduce the availability of vaping products which are 95 percent less harmful. However, that’s what has happened since 11 August, with general retailers now only permitted to sell three vaping flavors,” she said.
“There needs to be more promotion and resourcing for vaping as the reduced risk alternative to smoking. The smokefree action plan should have signaled that the government’s will review recent vaping regulations to ensure they’re fit-for-purpose and future-proofed,” she said.
Loucas lamented that New Zealand’s vaping regulations and smokefree action plan have been done in silos when the two are in fact intrinsically linked and should dovetail towards the same end goal.
“Congratulations to the government on giving smokefree a big push,” she said. “It’s a shame our vaping regulations are not proportionate to the lack of risk, compared to combustible tobacco, and are not utilized to further assist the country’s Smokefree 2025 goal.”
December 9, 2021
Smoking Down in New Zealand

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Fewer New Zealanders smoke cigarettes than last year, reports The New Zealand Herald, citing the results of a survey performed by the Ministry of Health.
Based on data collected between September 2020 and August 2021, the study revealed a larger than usual decrease in daily smoking. In 2020-2021, 10.9 percent of those who took part in the survey were current smokers compared to the 13.7 percent in the study taken across 2019-2020.
However, smoking among Māori and Pacific adults remained high: 22.3 percent of Māori and 16.4 percent of Pacific adults were daily smokers.
“The hard work of the government and those in the smokefree sector is paying dividends,” said Action for Smokefree director Deborah Hart. “But we must prioritize those who need support to quit smoking – Māori, Pacific and those in low socio-economic status.”
Associate Professor Collin Tukuitonga was disappointed by the high smoking rates among the Pacific community.
“It is disappointing that Pacific rates remain high. We can see from the [Covid-19] vaccine rollout what can be achieved when communities are engaged.
“That is what we need to ensure Pacific people get to the Smokefree 2025 goal.”
December 2, 2021
Vape Sector Welcomes NZ ‘Smoke-Free’ Law

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Vaping activists have welcomed New Zealand’s new “smoke-free” law, which they say strikes a balance between ensuring that safe, good-quality products are readily available for adult smokers while minimizing appeal to young people.
According to the U.K. Vaping Industry Association (UKVIA), New Zealand’s Smoke-free Environments and Regulated Products (vaping) Amendment Bill is “a breath of fresh air.”
“New Zealand has taken a huge leap forward in its efforts toward a smoke-free society in a move that brings its laws on vaping in line with the U.K.’s—and in many ways surpasses them,” the UKVIA wrote in a statement. “Not only does this move pave the way for many more smokers to be able to access vaping products with confidence, [but] it also puts its near neighbor Australia’s vaping policies to shame.”
In Australia, nicotine e-liquid is regulated like tobacco. However, the New Zealand government views vaping as a safer alternative to smoking and allows retailers to provide the following messages: “Completely replacing your cigarette with a vape will reduce harm to your health” and “If you smoke, switching completely to vaping is a much less harmful option.”
Among other provisions, New Zealand’s new legislation requires manufacturers to notify health authorities that a product has met the safety and quality standards before it can be sold; sets nicotine limits at 20 mg/mL for freebase nicotine and 50 mg/mL for nicotine salt products; and limits container sizes to 120 mL and requires them to be protected against breakage, leakage, spilling and have child-resistant closures.
In addition, the law sets a minimum sales age of 18 and restricts retail outlets to sell only tobacco, mint or menthol e-liquids. Vape shops, by contrast, will be allowed to sell a range of flavored products.
“We applaud New Zealand’s bold and brave approach to vaping, now enshrined into law, and can only encourage Australia and other countries with regressive, anti-harm reduction attitudes toward vaping to look again at the enormous role vaping can play in helping smokers to give up combustible tobacco for good,” the UKVIA wrote.
August 16, 2021
Radical Plan to Achieve Smoke-Free Society

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The government of New Zealand wants to ban cigarette filters, reduce product nicotine levels, minimize the number of tobacco outlets and outlaw tobacco sales to new smokers, reports Stuff.
Released to the public in a discussion document on April 16, the proposals are intended to help New Zealand achieve its ambition of being smoke-free by 2025.
“About 4,500 New Zealanders die every year from tobacco, and we need to make accelerated progress to be able to reach that goal,” said Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall. “Business as usual without [a] tobacco control program won’t get us there,” she said.
One of the proposed measures entails a ban on the sale of tobacco to people younger than 18 from 2022, meaning anyone born after 2004 would be unable to buy tobacco.
Another proposal calls for limiting tobacco sales to pharmacies and designated stores. Currently, there are no restrictions on where tobacco can be sold in New Zealand. At least 80 percent of it is sold through convenience stores, service stations, on-licensed premises and supermarkets.
I’m sick and tired of this government trying to socially engineer us into changing our behavior.
Karen Chhour, ACT Party
Other proposed measures include setting a minimum price for tobacco, licensing all tobacco and vaping retailers and reducing nicotine in tobacco products to “low levels.”
The prospect of limiting the amount of nicotine in tobacco would require input from tobacco companies and “whether that’s a sort of product that they think could be offered commercially.”
“Some tobacco companies have said that they support a smoke-free goal and are putting their efforts on vapes, and I hope that they will see this as a positive development,” said Verrall.
Health advocates applauded the proposals. Boyd Swinburn, chairman of advocacy group Health Coalition Aotearoa, said the recommendations were likely “game-ending” for tobacco.
“There is clear evidence that restricting retail availability is a central strategy for reducing the damage from all harmful products,” he said.
“Several options to achieve this are outlined in the government’s proposals, and we need to ensure that there is a just transition for small business owners, like dairies, to exit tobacco retail.”
Others were less enthusiastic, saying the measure would boost illicit trade. ACT Party social development spokeswoman Karen Chhour said the proposed measures would mean smokers who are less able to afford their habits would end up spending more.
“As a former smoker, I have to say I’m sick and tired of this government trying to socially engineer us into changing our behavior,” she said.
“There’s a strong argument, too, that this will drive up the trade of black market tobacco with high nicotine, driving those addicted to cigarettes to turn to crime to feed their habit.”
22nd Century Group, a U.S. company specializing in very low nicotine content tobacco, welcomed New Zealand’s proposals, saying it is fully prepared to support the country in its efforts to become a smoke-free nation by 2025.
“New Zealand has made great progress since announcing their goal of becoming smoke-free by 2025, but in order for the country to finally achieve success, it is imperative that the amount of nicotine in cigarettes is reduced 95 percent to ‘minimal levels,’” said James A. Mish, chief executive officer of 22nd Century Group, in a statement.
22nd Century said it initially engaged with public health researchers in New Zealand in 2016 when the country announced its goal of becoming smoke-free, leading the New Zealand Medical Journal to publish a letter recommending 22nd Century’s reduced nicotine content cigarettes as an “important smoking reduction tool.”
New Zealand has played a key role in past smoking reduction initiatives that have eventually been adopted globally. Other countries, including Australia and Canada, as well as the World Health Organization are expected to call for lower nicotine levels too.
April 16, 2021
New Zealand: Call for RYO Graphic Warnings

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
A recent study by the University of Otago that was published in the Drug and Alcohol Review recommended that the New Zealand government require that graphic (pictorial) health warnings be placed on packages of roll-your-own tobacco, reports the Otago Times Daily.
Users of roll-your-own tobacco comprise 40 percent of all adult smokers in New Zealand, according to the study. The study’s lead researcher, Mei-Ling Blank, a research fellow in the Otago Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, noted that the nation had an unusually high percentage of roll-your-own smokers compared with many other countries, who also tended to believe their cigarettes were superior and that some health warnings did not fully apply to them.
Blank noted that in New Zealand, many more additives were included in roll-your-own tobacco than in tobacco in machine-made cigarettes, a fact that was opposite what the study’s participants presupposed. Blank said the report suggested that “new, harder-hitting, user-specific themes on tobacco pouches” should be applied.
April 2, 2021
Smoking up During Kiwi Lockdown

Photo: Tobacco Reporter archive
Many smokers upped their cigarette consumption during New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdown, according to new research published by the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco.
New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic was one of the most restrictive lockdowns of any country, inevitably causing stress for many people. Because situations that increase stress and anxiety are associated with higher smoking prevalence, the researchers examined self-reported smoking before and during the lockdown, and analyzed factors associated with reported changes in cigarette consumption.
The scientists conducted an online panel survey of a demographically representative sample of 2010 adult New Zealanders during the Covid-19 lockdown; the final, weighted sample included 261 daily smokers and 71 weekly smokers. We measured psychological distress and anxiety, as well as situational factors, tobacco consumption and demographic attributes.
Nearly half of daily smokers reported smoking more during than before the lockdown, on average, an increase of six cigarettes a day; increased daily cigarette consumption was associated with loneliness and isolation. Most weekly smokers reported either that their smoking during the lockdown had not changed or had slightly reduced.
“As governments introduce unprecedented measures to manage Covid-19, they need also to consider other public health risks, such as increased smoking among current smokers or relapse among recent quitters,” the authors wrote in their report. “Evidence that loneliness was associated with increased smoking during a lockdown suggests a need for cessation out-reach strategies that promote and support smoke-free practices.”
January 30, 2021