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> New Zealand's smoking rate is already at historic lows, with just 8% of adults smoking daily according to government statistic released in November - down fro
by AlbertCory 4y ago
> New Zealand's smoking rate is already at historic lows, with just 8% of adults smoking daily according to government statistic released in November - down from 9.4% last year.
if this was accomplished without prohibitions, how many negative consequences (black markets, organized crime, smuggling, adulterated cigarettes) is NZ willing to tolerate to get to zero? One would think that at some point, you get down to a hard core that will never stop.
- yboris 4y agoThe point of the law is to prevent anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes. Hardcore users that are older than that can continue to purchase tobacco.
- standardUser 4y agoRight, those born after 2008 will have to buy their cigarettes illegally.
- dylan604 4y agoIllegal cigarettes are something deeply ingrained in my mind as part of the trade from the mafia. I'm now imagining guido looking men with kiwi accents.
- standardUser 4y agoI used to (illegally) order cartons from Eastern Europe when I was a broke college kid. They didn't taste as good, but were less than half price of US cigarettes!
- grujicd 4y agoWhen I was a kid in the 80-ties parents sent me to buy cigarettes for them. It was not illegal to sell them to minors. I guess there'll be reversal of that practice in New Zealand.
- hotcrossbunny 4y agoWhen I was a high school kids in the 90s, the dairy across the road from the school would sell individual cigarettes to the kids for 10c each. Utter scumbags. How many addictions began with that thin end of the wedge.
- mustardo 4y ago"dairy" is Kiwi for a convenience store, Off License, Superette. I remember being surprised moving overseas and calling it a dairy nobody knew what I was talking about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_(store) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_(store)
- Matsta 4y agoCigarettes are so expensive that no one really smokes them in NZ anyway, everyone has already moved to vapes. I doubt that there will be a black market for tobacco as, by the time you smuggle them in, they still won't be that cheap. Also, MPI (Ministry for Primary Industries) are even more strict on importing organic materials (or any biological for that matter) than Customs are on drugs. In saying that, there was a big cigarette bust a couple of years back: https://www.customs.govt.nz/about-us/news/media-releases/customs-arrests-auckland-man-for-attempting-to-smuggle-2.2-million-cigarettes https://www.customs.govt.nz/about-us/news/media-releases/cus... Source: I'm Kiwi
- mytailorisrich 4y agoWhat's the point of banning cigarettes, then?
- worik 4y ago> Source: I'm Kiwi Me too. Last year I saw the first high quality black market tobacco. Grown and processed locally.