Associate Professor Nick Wilson, Dr Linda Cobiac, Professor Tony Blakely

Image from a World Health Organization poster

In a modelling study we just published in the international journal Tobacco Control, we examined the potential role of increasing tobacco tax for achieving an end to the tobacco epidemic in NZ. The bottom line is that tax rises could play an important role but other strategies will almost certainly be required if the Government’s smokefree goal is to be achieved by 2025. In this blog we discuss some of the modelling results and also the other policy options that could be explored.

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Professor Richard Edwards

Every now and then when discussing New Zealand’s Smokefree 2025 goal, plain packaging or some other policy measure, the question will come up – ‘well why don’t you just ban it?’ Indeed, Hone Harawira drafted a Private Members Bill proposing exactly that back in 2006.

Why not just ban the sale of tobacco?

This blog considers some arguments for and against a ban on the production (other than tobacco grown for personal use), importation and sale of tobacco products, whilst not criminalising the use of tobacco. The purpose of such a measure would be to ensure, hasten and sustain the achievement of the goal of close to zero smoking prevalence by 2025. The blog comes down on the side of intensifying other tobacco control approaches initially but also encouraging a public debate about setting a ‘national quit date’ in a few years time when the tobacco industry would be stopped from selling its lethal and addictive tobacco products.

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