New Zealand will pass the world’s first tobacco law to ban smoking by 2025.new zealand

New Zealand has introduced the world’s first law to steadily raise the smoking age to ban the legal purchase of tobacco under the age of 14. ban smoking for future generations.

Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall said in passing the law on Tuesday: , heart attack, stroke, amputation.

New Zealand is believed to be the first country in the world to raise the smoking age each year to prevent the sale of cigarettes to people born after January 1, 2009.

Other measures to make smoking affordable and less accessible, such as slashing the legal amount of nicotine in tobacco products and forcing them to be sold only in tobacco shops rather than corner shops or supermarkets. It involves many measures.

The country also increased funding for health services and campaigns and rolled out smoking cessation services specifically for Maori and Pacific communities.

The number of outlets legally allowed to sell tobacco will be reduced nationwide from 6,000 to just 600, a tenth of existing levels. The law passed its final reading on Tuesday night and is set to come into force in 2023 as New Zealand looks to meet that goal. Make the country ‘smoking-free’ by 2025.

When introducing the law at its first reading in July, Veral said: It’s sickening and weird. In this country, there are more regulations regarding the safety of selling sandwiches than cigarettes.

“We want young people to never start smoking, so we will make it illegal to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to a new demographic of young people. cannot be legally purchased.”

“Smoking rates are plummeting,” she added. “Our goal of being smoke-free by 2025 is within reach.”

However, the new law will not restrict the sale of e-cigarettes. Data show that at least some New Zealanders have switched their nicotine habit from cigarettes to e-cigarettes.

Data released in November showed that the number of people smoking per day fell to 8% from 9.4% last year. Lowest rate since records began.

However, the increase in daily e-cigarette users has outpaced the decline in daily smokers, with 8.3% of adults now using e-cigarettes daily, up from 6.2% over the past year.