Smoking cigarettes has always been something that was started pretty young. It is an outlier who starts smoking after the age of 18. This law will affect total

Smoking cigarettes has always been something that was started pretty young. It is an outlier who starts smoking after the age of 18. This law will affect total smoking in the population only as much as it can affect the ability of minors to obtain cigarettes. By making it a black market, this may backfire, since it is easier for an underage person to purchase something illegally from an illegal supplier than it is for an underage person to purchase something illegally from a legal supplier. However since NZ is an island nation they may be able to pull this off since smuggling in cigarettes may not be lucrative enough compared to something like cocaine or heroin. Of course the penalties would have to be more than a slap on the wrist for that to be the case.