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New Zealanders born after 2013 will never legally be allowed to buy cigarettes as part of proposed legislation to drive smoking rates towards zero. Experts believe it will effectively deter young people from taking up smoking, but are concerned they will adopt vaping instead.

The legislation, which is due to be introduced to the New Zealand parliament in mid-2022, also seeks to encourage existing smokers to quit by reducing the allowed nicotine content in cigarettes to make them less addictive, limiting the shops that can sell them and scaling up addiction-support services.

鈥淧reventing people from starting to smoke and helping those who smoke to quit means we are covering both ends of the spectrum,鈥� said Ayesha Verrall, New Zealand鈥檚 associate minister of health, when . The government wants to reduce the proportion of New Zealanders who smoke from to .

at the University of Sydney in Australia says the proposed measures are a good idea, but will need to be properly enforced to work. 鈥淲e know that children have always worked out through whisper networks that, 鈥極h, that shop down there will sell cigarettes to you鈥�,鈥� he says.

One solution may be to introduce electronic smart cards that cigarette buyers must tap at shops to prove they were born before 2013, says Chapman. Police could check shopkeepers鈥� cigarette stocks against how many smart cards had been tapped in their store to make sure they weren鈥檛 illegally selling any on the side to underage customers. This system would also alert authorities to adults buying large quantities of cigarettes to illegally sell on to underage people.

Some children may still obtain cigarettes from their parents or older friends, but this is less of a problem than being able to buy whole packs, says Chapman.

Critics have suggested that reducing nicotine content in cigarettes will drive a black market for higher-nicotine cigarettes smuggled in from other countries, but at the University of Otago in New Zealand doesn鈥檛 believe this will be a major issue.

鈥淭he black market argument is always trotted out when new tobacco control measures are introduced, but independent studies show that black market cigarettes aren鈥檛 a big problem here,鈥� she says. The proposed legislation acknowledges the need for to prevent illegal smuggling if the new measures are introduced.

Under the proposed law, people will be allowed to grow tobacco for their own personal use, but Hoek doesn鈥檛 believe this will become widespread practice. 鈥淲hat I鈥檝e heard from people who鈥檝e tried homegrown tobacco is that it鈥檚 pretty unpalatable and quite a different experience to smoking highly processed cigarettes,鈥� she says.

鈥淥verall, I think the government鈥檚 plan is very comprehensive and really impressively thought through,鈥� says Hoek.

at the University of Auckland in New Zealand says that most New Zealanders support tougher tobacco control measures. 鈥淧eople realise they鈥檝e been played by the tobacco industry and it鈥檚 killing them,鈥� he says.

Banning young New Zealanders from smoking shouldn鈥檛 be too difficult because most aren鈥檛 interested anyway, says Bullen. The 2020/21 New Zealand Health Survey shows that only .

On the other hand, young people in New Zealand are increasingly taking up vaping, which would still be allowed under the proposed legislation. 鈥淚鈥檓 in favour of vaping as a tool to help quit smoking, which is much more harmful, but I鈥檓 not in favour of vaping as a lifestyle consumer product,鈥� says Bullen.

Experts are increasingly concerned about the safety of e-cigarettes, which have been linked with lung injuries and even some deaths.

鈥淚t worries me to think we鈥檝e worked so hard to try to reduce smoking prevalence among young people and now we are seeing rising vaping prevalence,鈥� says Hoek. 鈥淚 think New Zealand needs to be incredibly mindful of that and to carefully monitor and evaluate the policies around vaping.鈥�

If the proposed legislation passes, all cigarettes sold in New Zealand will have to contain low levels of nicotine by 2025. From 2027, all people aged 14 or under 鈥� meaning they were born in 2013 or later 鈥� will never be able to legally purchase cigarettes.