WELLINGTON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Public health experts have hailed New Zealand's tobacco control efforts following a World Health Organization (WHO)'s report on implementing tobacco control guidelines.
According to the latest WHO report, New Zealand is carrying out most of the "MPOWER" tobacco control guidelines, with the final hurdle being banning all forms of tobacco advertising across the country.
New Zealand is one of only 12 countries judged as meeting best practice for at least four out of five of the MPOWER components, which include key demand reduction interventions such as introducing smokefree environments policies, providing comprehensive smoking cessation support and implementing robust mass media campaigns, health warnings on packs and taxation of tobacco products.
Richard Edwards from the University of Otago said this helps tackle the huge inequities in health that tobacco smoking causes.
New Zealand will soon be introducing measures to regulate and restrict the supply of smoked tobacco products, which include greatly reducing the number of retailers selling tobacco in August 2024 and removing the nicotine from all cigarettes and tobacco in April 2025, Edwards said.
A "smokefree generation" policy will also be introduced in 2027 so that it is illegal to sell cigarettes and tobacco to people born after Jan. 1, 2009.
Janet Hoek of the University of Otago warned of the rapid rises in youth vaping in New Zealand and called for more effective regulation of vapes.
Victoria Egli, research fellow at the University of Auckland, said New Zealand needs to do more to protect children from the harms of tobacco by banning all forms of tobacco marketing including vape products.
According to the Ministry of Health, the number of children starting to vape has quadrupled.
"When children walk to and from school and spend time in their neighborhoods with friends, vape shops and promotional signage is right there," Egli said.
The sale of all tobacco and vape products should be banned from 500m network boundaries, instead of 300m stated in the current law, around all schools and all child-centered spaces, like playgrounds and movie theaters, to reduce children's exposure to the marketing and sale of these products, she said. ■
