The Answer to Smokefree NZ: Vaping...?
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The bold and world-leading policies of Smokefree NZ have been met with praise from healthcare professionals worldwide and championed as a win for progressive policy, prioritizing the people over revenues from Big Tobacco. It’s a noble cause — one that should save thousands of lives from preventable smoking-related disease, reduce inequalities in our country, and reduce spending on unnecessary healthcare costs associated with smoking. The new legislation stopping people born after January 1st, 2009, from ever legally buying tobacco products is simply the last step in a decade-long campaign to reduce smoking. Laws in New Zealand regarding advertising, packaging, restricted areas, and sale and supply have been tightening since the 1990s.
With attitudes towards smoking at an all-time low, studies show that globally, fewer and fewer young people are picking up the habit. That is, until vaping gave nicotine addiction the rebrand that Big Tobacco really needed. Since their legalisation in 2018, nicotine-containing e-cigarettes and vape pens have become the chosen habit for young Kiwis, with more than 1 in 6 kids aged 14-15 vaping regularly. 2023 saw 1,945 primary and intermediate students suspended for vaping in school. And now, after decades of a downwards trend, overall nicotine consumption in New Zealand is back on the rise. Our “world-leading” smokefree 2025 policy has halved our fairly modest rate of smoking (from 16% in 2015 to 8% in 2024), and as a byproduct, created what is widely regarded as a youth vaping crisis. So how did we get here?
Vaping was very much a grey area for a long time, but when a court ruling in 2018 found that the Smoke-free Environment Act didn’t prohibit vaping, nicotine vapes got the green light to hit the market. The government endorsed (and continues to endorse) vaping as a healthier alternative to smoking and welcomed the products onto shelves. With no nicotine limits and no advertising restrictions, vapes started being promoted through social media and dating apps, on billboards, in radio ads, and even on TV. Despite the claims that ads were targeted at smokers wanting to quit, ads on social media and dating apps were reaching a much more promising market — young people. With attitudes toward smoking on the decline for our younger generations, Big Tobacco was getting the rebrand it needed to keep people inhaling toxic chemicals into their lungs and paying for it. Vype, owned by British American Tobacco, was a major sponsor of Rhythm and Vines and Rhythm and Alps in 2019, where many festival-goers received free vapes. At the time, vaping products could contain as much as 60mg of nicotine compared to the 14mg of nicotine in a typical cigarette, meaning that the new vaping products were far more addictive than cigarettes, and being put into the hands of young people who had likely never smoked a cigarette before in their lives. The investment returned in more ways than one, as not only have thousands of Kiwis developed long-term nicotine dependencies, but also, new vapers are four times more likely to take up smoking. Only in 2020 did the government catch on to such tactics and limit the extent to which nicotine products can be promoted and advertised.
In our rash push to be world leaders with Smokefree 2025, we introduced a product that we still don’t know the effects of, and in doing so, fed thousands of young Kiwis to the wolves — that is, the aggressive marketing ploys of Big Tobacco companies.
When we look at the aims of the Smokefree 2025 policy, there are two main points. To improve Kiwi’s health, and to reduce social inequalities. While vaping is still widely regarded as a healthier alternative to smoking, due to the lack of combustion in the lungs, studies show that vaping still induces increased risks of cardiovascular disease, respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic lung disease, and cancer. Nicotine, a drug equally as addictive as cocaine or heroin, is particularly harmful for children and adolescents, causing developmental delays, reduced impulse control, reduced capacity to concentrate, and other behavioural and mental health issues.
Of the 7000 vape stores that have opened across the nation (that’s one store per 600 adults), almost 30% are within 400m of schools. Socioeconomically deprived areas (decile 1 schools) have seven times as many vape stores as wealthy areas (decile 10 schools). Māori are overrepresented among young people who vape daily, and the statistics mirror those of tobacco smoking. With health inequalities being perpetuated by vaping, the government’s blind promotion of e-cigarettes has no legs left to stand on. What was never called a “smoking crisis” has now developed into a “vaping crisis.” The situation has escalated beyond our government's control because of their lack of forethought and regulation. Vaping’s one success? Where before smoking was stigmatised as a strictly blue-collar activity, vaping transcends class, enticing even our most privileged young people! From primary schoolers to pensioners, builders to businessmen, vaping truly has something for everyone.
My question is: if we truly believe that the largely unregulated introduction of nicotine vapes was necessary to achieve our “trailblazing” goal of Smokefree 2025 and a “smoke-free generation”, would we do it all again?
What had us all so convinced? Smokefree 2025 was a very clever sell. Not only did it tap into our desire as a small island nation at the bottom of the world, to be “world-leaders” once again, just like when we gave women the vote, legalised gay marriage and beat COVID. But, it was also beautifully simple. Addiction, drugs, mental health, unequal health outcomes for Maori — these are all complex, multi-layered issues that require long-term structural changes. But Smokefree 2025 offered a quick fix, suggesting instead to the general public that addiction is a choice and that when people are not able to make the right choices for themselves, that choice should be taken away from them.
Many like to call it a “nanny state”; the job of parents has been passed off to the government to enforce. And that’s exactly the problem with it. The culture within your family, your community, your workplace, your neighbourhood, is always going to be a bigger influence on you than the law. Even if you didn’t grow up in a smoking household or around anyone who smoked, you know that 10:30 is smoko break, and that isn’t going anywhere. Whether it’s a cigarette, a coffee, a cuppa, a chocolate bikkie, or a vape — we should all be able to make an informed decision and pick our poison. Because one thing that’s not going to disappear is stress. In this cost-of-living crisis, it could very well be getting worse, and, until it gets better, we’re all in need of something to take the edge off.
Luxon’s decision to scrap Smokefree 2025 is about the only one one can be on board with so far, but unfortunately, the damage has already been done. The way that vapes have flooded the market under the guise of “health” is heinous. How much long-term harm will be caused by our youth vaping epidemic is yet to be seen, and we should be deeply concerned. Thinking about children in primary schools in our country suffering nicotine withdrawals is, quite frankly, dystopian.
So what are we going to do? Countries like Australia have already gone as far as to make nicotine vapes prescription-only. Studies in the US have shown that if vapes were restricted to only tobacco flavour, 71% of users would quit. And David Seymour reckons vapes should only be sold at venues with liquor licences — who are already subject to limited operating hours and stricter supervision regarding sale to underage persons. Albeit somewhat behind the 8 ball, it’s better late than never when we’re talking about our children’s futures.
