WELLINGTON, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government moves to tackle youth vaping via banning the manufacture and sale of disposable vaping products, and significantly increasing penalties for sales of cigarettes and vapes to minors.
The government has agreed to a complete ban on disposable vapes, significant increases in fines for sales to under-18s, further restrictions on retailers and a better enforcement system to ensure vape retailers are following the rules, Associate Health Minister Casey Costello said on Wednesday.
"While vaping has contributed to a significant fall in our smoking rates, the rapid rise in youth vaping has been a real concern for parents, teachers, and health professionals," Costello said, adding cheap, single-use vape products will be banned outright.
Reusable vapes are a key smoking cessation device and will remain available. But too many teenagers continue to use disposable vapes as they are cheap and remain too easy to get, despite changes made by the government, Costello said, adding the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products Act will be amended to legalize the ban.
"There must be clear consequences for retailers found supplying vapes, or other regulated products like cigarettes, to minors," she said, adding the maximum fine for retailers found selling vapes or other regulated products to under-18s will increase from 10,000 NZ dollars (6,047 U.S. dollars) to 100,000 NZ dollars (60,470 U.S. dollars).
The government has also agreed to introducing further requirements on specialist vape retailers, such as tighter restrictions on storefront displays and staffing requirements, Costello said, adding the licensing and compliance regimes around vaping will be reviewed.
A range of regulations are set to enter force on Thursday, including a ban on vaping products with images of cartoons or toys on the packaging, and limiting flavor names to generic descriptions.
The New Zealand government aims to drive down smoking rates to achieve the Smokefree goal of less than 5 percent of the population smoking daily by 2025.
In the last three years nearly 230,000 people have quit smoking, and the percentage of the population who smoke daily has fallen from 16.4 percent in 2012, to just 6.8 percent last year, statistics show. ■
