New Zealand is set to introduce revolutionary anti-tobacco legislation barring certain generations from ever being legally able to buy tobacco. It’s a unique proposition — outlawing those aged 14 and under when the law comes into effect from purchasing a product their parents can.
The legislation raises interesting questions about civil liberties, and a debate around introducing a rule affecting an ever-shrinking demographic — young smokers — while the use of smoke-free nicotine products such as vapes is rising.
Tobacco control and human rights are rarely discussed together, although it presents an interesting debate: does tobacco control support the right to life and health, or diminish the rights to rights to self-determination and non-discrimination?
Coercive? Excessive state intervention?
While public health organisations argue there is no constitutional right to smoke and the World Health Organization argues for “evidence-based” policies that “reaffirm the right of all people to the highest standard of health”, others argue tobacco control restrictions are “paternalistic”, a form of “coercion“, and consist of “excessive state intervention”.
This is one of the first times in the world a product has been phased out based on birthdate, adjunct professor at Curtin University National Drug Research Institute Dr Nicole Lee tells Crikey, although the restrictions have been debated in Singapore, Tasmania and parts of the UK.
A key determinant, Lee says, was the fact it wouldn’t affect existing users but would stop new ones.
“Ninety per cent of people who smoke cigarettes are dependent on it, whereas a very small percentage of people who use other drugs are dependent on it,” she said.
She says the legislation was unlikely to be applied to other drugs such as alcohol or even cannabis in countries where it has been legalised.
“There’s a strong public health push to ban tobacco because the vast majority of people who use cigarettes have problems with them, whereas other drugs people are able to use it in moderation,” she said.
Are kids even smoking?
A key criticism of the legislation is that it focuses on tobacco rather than smokeless products, like vapes.
Recent New Zealand research has shown that 38% of students aged 13-18 had vaped and one in 10 vaped regularly, compared with 15% who had ever smoked or the 4% who smoked regularly. While smoking is more common among students in low-socioeconomic areas, vaping was tried in schools in every region. Of those who had vaped, 81% had never smoked.
New Zealand has had a more relaxed approach to vaping than Australia. It excluded vaping products from normal tobacco control legislation in 2018 and allows adults to purchase nicotine e-liquid from retail stores. There are plans to reduce the number of outlets that can sell vaping products and introduce limits on nicotine strength.
This year Australia introduced stricter policies, barring anyone from buying or importing liquid nicotine without a doctor’s prescription showing they were using vapes to quit smoking. In Australia, smoking is the estimated cause of 13% of all deaths. One in 10 adults smoke, compared with 15% in 2014-15.
Lee is concerned Australia’s laws do more harm than good; some studies suggest vaping is much safer than smoking, although the products are too new to know if they are linked to cancer.
“The stuff in cigarettes that gives you cancer and lung disease is a concern,” she said. “From a public health perspective, vaping is much safer than smoking so it makes sense to try and reduce the amount of smoking even if we don’t try and reduce the level of vaping.”
What extra policies can we expect?
Australia’s nicotine prescription laws are a world first, and some of the first action it has taken against big tobacco since the plain packaging laws were introduced in 2012, Sydney University public health expert Professor emeritus Simon Chapman says.
A key concern for public health experts is whether vaping is a gateway to smoking for young people, getting them hooked on nicotine early.
But he’s not sure the prescription legislation has been effective, largely because the Health Department has been focused on COVID-19 instead of cracking down on the vape black market.
“I think other countries will follow Australia’s prescription model because the black market is a much less effective mechanism,” he said.
“I suspect if Labor wins the election, Australia would likely see an end to the personal importation scheme with nicotine vaping products to stop the supply.”
The other argument for tobacco smoking control is that the ill effects are shared by those around the smoker, not just by the smoker. This does sway the argument away from keeping tobacco smoking legal – and if losing the vaping war is the price for killing off smoking entirely, potentially limiting the negative impacts to nicotine use rather than also health impacts from burning tobacco, it might be a price worth considering.
It won’t take long for history to repeat itself. Look what the prohibition of alcohol did, the havoc that proscribing drugs has wrought over the last century. Make no mistake, the darker forces in our midst will make damn sure that what society wants, society will get. The more draconian the govt becomes, the more the public, especially the young will push back. The billions NZ will throw at policing will disappear down a bottomless pit. Criminalists have for many decades advised against these kinds of useless measures. So far Portugal is the only country I’m aware of that has decriminalised all drugs and put money into rehabilitation with great success. Whomever becomes the next govt here next, take careful note…
Portugal achieved decriminalisation, and subsequent decline in crime, health issues etc., through political bipartisan agreement, and forward looking.
Meanwhile, many bipartisan MPs in Australia view all ‘drugs’ as something to dog whistle and the right of LNP etc. use it as a moral gavel to belt youth, minorities, left etc. for political and ‘conservative’ excuses, while turning a blind eye to alcohol abuse, including Parliament House.
Just curious Bref, is there anything that you wouldn’t prohibit?
I’ve often asked myself the same question and of course the answer is no.
However I’m also opposed to compulsory voting but have seen the result of optional and prefer the evil of two lessers.
Thinking about it, probably not a lot. Name me one drug that people want where banning hasn’t had the opposite effect. I think most people, with proper information would stay away from the truly bad ones. A great majority of people who use ecstasy for example know how to use it wisely. Decriminalisation doesn’t necessarily condone drug use, it just won’t send you to jail for using them as now. Shooting up facilities don’t stop people using, but they do save lives and do more to assist people in getting help than any other program.
Bref, we are talking about 14 year old kids here and those who are younger. For some reason, I cannot see them turning into Al Capone types running around with Thompson sub-machine guns and having shoot-outs with police because they are not allowed to buy or smoke cigarettes. (Did you watch The Untouchables too many times as a kid? Actually, I think that I would make a good modern day Eliot Ness, don’t you think?)
Your ‘shooting up’ facilities might ‘save lives’ but from what I can gather they have created a kind of hell on Earth for many of those unfortunate enough to have to live in the vicinity of them.
You say that you think that:
” …. most people, with proper information would stay away from the truly bad ones.”
My response to that is that any person with half-a-brain would not go nowhere near any illegal drug or tobacco or alcohol. Bref, those drugs are not made illegal by some kind of ‘party-pooper’ types who simply only want to spoil people’s fun. They are made illegal for very good reasons with the aim of protecting the health of the community.
Even I had the good sense to stop smoking when I was 13 years of age and to stop drinking alcohol at age 21. I never went anywhere near any illegal drugs at any stage in my life. They were some of the best decisions that I have ever made. I always found it much more pleasurable enjoying what might be described as ‘the natural pleasures that life has to offer’. And I found in that pursuit that being a non-drinker often put people at ease and therefore was often a distinct advantage.
Like many, you seem the sort who would have benefitted from THC.
The only persona seeking public position which I more fervently despise than those who claim ‘never to have taken…insert…’ are those who say “I did but didn’t like it.”.
Bozo recently updated Bubba’s ‘didn’t inhale’ with ‘I sneezed and lost most of it!’
Unlike the Great Green Arkleseizure, he has produced nothing of worth.
Seems like you will fervently and ardently despise me Phryne. But that’s the way it goes I suppose.
I did drink alcohol and I didn’t like it. (That made it so easy for me to stop drinking the cursed stuff. I never drank too heavily anyway, unlike some of my mates. I just tell it like it is Phryne. I don’t make up stories. I have absolutely no need to.
Remember Wowser Walker and his Pitt St palladium?
Turned to Pandemonium fairly smartly, what with the kiddie fiddlers, drunks, whoremongers and standard, common-or-garden hypocrites.
Au contraire, “…drugs are not made illegal by some kind of ‘party-pooper’ types who simply only want to spoil people’s fun.” – it is precisely those psychically crippled cases, horrified by the thought that, u like themselves, others might be having a good time or at least insufficiently miserable.
Like the Puritans of old (who went and ruined the New World) they didn’t oppose bear baiting for the pain caused to the bear & dogs but because of the pleasure it gave to low types enjoyed such abominations.
To claim that some (patented, taxable) drugs “…are made illegal for very good reasons with the aim of protecting the health of the community.” is beyond ridicule.
It usurps JS Mill’s first principle that the state has no right to protect a person from themself and to claim that it must be done for the good of others is purest cant.
(But not Kant, who would not bother to spit on such banality.)
“Dost thou think that because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”
Lotta that about and it’s lasted far longer than a dozen nights, just people simply cannot bear the thought of pleasure not earned according to their strictures.
“Sir Robert plays a rare fool, but I do it more natural.”
I am absolutely fully in favor of the move by the New Zealand government to bar those under 14 from buying cigarettes. I nearly vomit when the permissive, libertarian, ‘do-as-you please’ types start raising ‘civil liberties’ issues when this sort of anti-tobacco legislation is enacted.
Once again, the ‘Human Rights” lobby are overplaying their hand. There are myriad more important issues for them to concentrate on. The fact that human rights are being raised in the same breath as smoking bans is laughable. What next, banning ice and heroin is considered a violation of human rights because some people like to abuse these drugs? This argument smacks of the ‘nanny state’ nonsense that is all too commonly used by the libertarian, free-marketeer crowd.
Coercive? Excessive state intervention? Well, in a word – NO!
These sorts of suggestions used in this context with regard to smoking are so utterly contemptible that I am tempted to use immoderate language in response but I shall restrain myself.
The World Health Organization states that:
“Nicotine contained in tobacco is highly addictive and tobacco use is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, over 20 different types or subtypes of cancer, and many other debilitating health conditions. Every year, more than 8 million people die from tobacco use”
https://www.who.int/health-topics/tobacco#tab=tab_1
And you have people raising ‘human rights’ issues when governments try to ban this filthy, toxic product. What a joke!
The only problem that I have with the New Zealand legislation is that it does not also restrict or ban outright e-cigarettes (vaping) as well.
While we are on the topic of e-cigarettes here are 5 vaping facts published by Johns Hopkins Medicine:
1 Vaping is less harmful than smoking but it is still not safe.
On this point they go on to note that:
“However, there has also been an outbreak of lung injuries and deaths associated with vaping. As of Jan. 21, 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed 60 deaths in patients with e-cigarette or vaping product use associated lung injury.“
2 Research suggests vaping is bad for your heart and lungs.
3 Electronic cigarettes are just as addictive as traditional ones.
4 Electronic cigarettes aren’t the best smoking cessation tool.
5 A new generation is getting hooked on nicotine
Further details on these points can be found at:
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/5-truths-you-need-to-know-about-vaping
Its like alcohol, other drugs and abortion, prohibition doesn’t work. The outcome is inevitably worse than the problem they’re trying to solve. Even now you can buy under the counter cigarettes for less than half normal retail prices, chop chop even cheaper.
I tend to disagree with you Bref.
Sure, there will be the diehard addicts who will stop at nothing to satisfy their filthy addition but these people will be subject to prosecution (hopefully) if they are caught.
Legislation of this kind sends a renewed message to the community that smoking is not acceptable. This objectionable addition has been under attack in the community for decades now with extra taxes, bans on advertising, anti-smoking propaganda campaigns and restrictions on smoking in public places. I want to see ‘the noose tightened further’ with respect to this activity and this legislation does just that. For me, the outcome will inevitably be better than the problem.
I don’t know what you have in mind in regard to managing this behavior?
You don’t have to agree RR but facts are facts. Look at history, again and again prohibition has made problems worse not better. Tightening the noose will criminalise people needlessly, will greatly benefit traffickers and deny taxes that can pay to help people with their addictions and mental problems. We know what our current draconian policies have produced despite the billions we’ve thrown at policing them over the decades: increased addiction and massive profits for crime syndicates. We know the Portuguese outcome: reduced crime, drug use and mental health issues.
Bref, according to Amber’s article and from what I have heard elsewhere, this legislation has, at least as it’s starting point, a restriction on the sale of tobacco products to children aged 14 years and under. This proposal seems to be similar to the restriction on the sale of alcohol products to people aged 18 years and under. I know that kids find a way around these laws but the threat of fines or of other forms of punishment for those selling alcohol to minors has not caused any major problems (or minor ones either, for that matter).
Also, from what I can gather, even in Portugal they have a requirement that people should be 18 years of age or over in order to both purchase and consume alcohol. However it seems that neither requirement is strictly enforced.
It seems that New Zealand has brought in similar restrictions on the tobacco industry to those which obtain here. In other words this latest measure has been preceded by a concerted propaganda campaign emphasizing the myriad problems caused by this insidious and addictive drug, a steady increase in taxation and of course, a complete ban on tobacco advertising. It is time to tighten the screws on this despicable product further.
“Australia’s nicotine prescription laws are a world first”
A world first for nicotine, maybe, but not a first for an addictive drug – heroin used to be prescribed to heroin addicts in the UK, and possibly still is to a very limited extent.
Always worth a try, never never know ifya don’t avago.BRO.
Actually we have over a hundred years of documented results on the effects of prohibition. We know what will happen.
The prohibition interregnum is the aberration – since Year Dot, the only sanction was reality.
Those who overindulge in any euphoriant tend to be deselected.
The US ‘Drug’ prohibition per se arose when the 18th Amendment was abolished – all those gun toting agents, drunks like Anslinger and other maladaptives had to be given a job and hey-ho, marijuana the weed with its roots in hell was born.