Once the requisite legislation is passed in Wellington, no one under the age of 14 will ever be able to buy tobacco in New Zealand. The legal smoking age, 18 at present, will rise each year thereafter, meaning that a decade hence a 25-year-old will be allowed to buy cigarettes but a 24-year-old will not. The prospect arises that, by the middle of the century, middle-aged smokers will loiter outside tobacconists asking their marginally older compatriots if they’d wouldn’t mind buying them a packet of fags.
It will be interesting to see how the New Zealand experiment plays out. At about 11 per cent of adults, the smoking rate there is already low. It may be that the measure drives that rate even lower as consumers literally die out. It may be that a refusenik hardcore turns to the black market and gangsterism thrives, as it did during Prohibition in the United States.
In Britain the gradualist policy of high taxation, an advertising crackdown, lurid pictures of diseased bodies on packaging and a ban on smoking in covered public spaces has coincided with a decline in the adult rate from about 20 per cent in 2012 to 14 per in 2019. Those figures suggest the UK approach is effective, although an increase in younger adults smoking during last year’s lockdowns should prevent any complacency.
Starting from a clean slate, most states would probably make tobacco illegal. Logically that could mean alcohol, refined sugar, riding motorbikes and playing extreme sports could fall victim to overzealous legislation too. In the real world, a balance must be struck, not just between personal liberty and public health but between enacting measures that will disincentivise harmful behaviour and taking a draconian step that might make the problem worse. Anti-smoking initiatives in Britain are, slowly, winning the war on tobacco.
