New Zealand’s goal to have fewer than 5% of people smoking by the end of the year looks unlikely to be met. Although smoking rates have dropped significantly since the target was announced in 2010 – down from 16.4% in 2011-12 to 6.9% in 2023-24 – latest data shows about 300,000 people are still smoking daily.
People living in the most deprived neighbourhoods are more than five times as likely to smoke every day as those in the least deprived areas. And the gap is stark across ethnic groups, with almost 15% of Māori and just over 12% of Pacific people smoking, compared with just over 6% of Europeans and nearly 4% of Asians.
Three years ago, the Labour government passed legislation aimed squarely at bringing that number down. The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act would have limited the number of retailers who could sell smoked tobacco products and banned anyone born after January 1, 2009 from purchasing tobacco products.
The legislation was repealed by the coalition government in March last year. The current approach focuses on harm-reduction measures, such as smoking cessation services, marketing and health promotion messaging, and community mobilisation and innovation, including the use of reduced-harm products like e-cigarettes or vapes.
To meet the smokefree target, these measures need to stop more than 80,000 people from smoking in the next few months. “Realistically, it’s going to be hard,” says Ben Youdan, director of Action for Smokefree 2025 (ASH). “There are a lot of groups who are going to achieve and surpass the goal, particularly young people. But we’re still not there for older folks who’ve smoked for a long time, for Māori and Pasifika and those on the lowest incomes.”
Youdan says there’s no doubt vaping has been phenomenally disruptive to smoking rates, with 11% of people now vaping daily. “It’s certainly been the most used aid that people have gone to to stop smoking.” But while it’s less harmful than smoking, it is not harmless.
The World Health Organisation says although there’s no clarity yet about the long-term impacts of e-cigarettes, the additives, flavours and chemicals found in them are known to be harmful. The WHO is also concerned at how e-cigarettes are targeted at children via social media influencers, attractive flavours and, often, a toy-like appearance. It says the rates of increase in e-cigarette use by children and young people exceeds that of adults in many countries.
“For a long time we had absolutely no regulations on vapes and the market exploded very quickly,” says Youdan. “They were very cheap and very easy to get. That was a big part of the rapid uptake of people using them to stop smoking. But the flip side of that has been the unwanted consequence of a lot of young people taking up vaping and developing nicotine dependence and an addiction.”
A number of vaping regulations have recently been introduced in New Zealand, including increased fines for selling to minors, a ban on selling disposable vapes and rules on advertising and the location of stores.
ASH says it appears to be making a difference, as youth vaping numbers are now dropping. But more needs to be done. “If we’re getting smoking down to under 5% and dramatically reducing how cigarettes are sold and where, what happens next?” Youdan asks. “Do we still need thousands and thousands of vape shops? Or is it about understanding what needs to be available to sustain those people who would otherwise go back to smoking.”
