After scrapping a plan several months in the past to ban folks born after 2008 from shopping for tobacco cigarettes, the New Zealand authorities on Wednesday introduced a complete ban on single-use e-cigarettes—often known as disposable vapes—and stated it would enhance the fines on retailers promoting cigarettes and vapes to these underneath 18, within the nation’s newest strategy to discourage smoking amongst youth.
“The fast rise in youth vaping has been an actual concern for folks, academics, and well being professionals,” Affiliate Well being Minister Casey Costello stated when announcing the changes to New Zealand’s Smokefree Environments and Regulated Merchandise Act. She added that reusable vapes would stay obtainable for adults as they’re “a key smoking cessation machine” however that too many youngsters use disposable vapes as a result of “they’re low cost and stay too simple to get.”
Costello stated the New Zealand authorities is “dedicated to tackling youth vaping and to proceed to drive down smoking charges to realize the Smokefree purpose of lower than 5% of the inhabitants smoking each day by 2025.” As of final yr, she stated, 6.8% of the inhabitants smoked each day.
Beneath the brand new guidelines, fines for retailers caught promoting regulated merchandise like vapes and cigarettes to minors can be elevated from NZ$10,000 (about $6,000) to NZ$100,000 ($60,000). Costello stated the New Zealand Cupboard additionally reconfirmed a spread of further smoking-related rules set to take impact on March 21, together with “a ban on vaping merchandise with pictures of cartoons or toys on the packaging, and limiting taste names to generic descriptions.” In the meantime, reusable vape merchandise could have till Oct. 1 of this yr to incorporate detachable batteries and child-proofing mechanisms.
New Zealand is the newest nation to ban disposable vapes after the U.K. announced a similar measure in January. And New Zealand’s neighbor Australia has banned the importation of disposable vapes since Jan. 1 amid considerations over widespread teenage use. As of December final yr, the World Health Organization (WHO) stated 34 international locations had banned e-cigarettes, whereas 74 international locations had no vape rules in place.
Not all in New Zealand are on board with the nation’s new ban, nevertheless. A spokesperson for right-wing stress group New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union warned that banning disposable vapes outright could have various hostile results. “We welcome the proposed adjustments in relation to harsher penalties and enforcement for these illegally promoting vaping merchandise to minors however extending this crackdown to a ban on disposable vapes will merely drive folks again in direction of smoking and encourage a blackmarket of unregulated vaping merchandise as seen in Australia,” Connor Molloy stated in a statement posted on X. “This ban will merely [make] it tougher and costlier to stop smoking, as a substitute encouraging folks to stay or revert to smoking, or to devour black market vaping merchandise the place the dangers are fully unknown.”
The WHO has argued that vapes are “not proven to be efficient for quitting tobacco use on the inhabitants degree” and urged governments worldwide to ban their sale to all ages or implement measures that may dissuade the general public, notably youngsters, from utilizing them.
