Kerre Woodham: If tobacco is not readily available to a generation, demand won't be there

Nobody, surely, would want a child to take up smoking.

It's a ruinously expensive habit that is indisputably bad for your health and the Government has gone about protecting young people in a novel way by banning the sale of tobacco to anyone born after the 1st of January, 2009.

It's one of the measures towards a goal of a Smokefree New Zealand, Smokefree Aotearoa.

The others being reducing the amount of nicotine that's allowed in smoked tobacco products and decreasing the number of retailers that sell tobacco.

Now the ACT party has released a tone deaf press release: ‘Labour's smoking bill kills dairies’.

No. What's killing dairies, and in a few tragic cases dairy owners, are criminals being allowed to operate seemingly at will.

But ACT is right when they say this will drive up the trade of black-market tobacco with high nicotine, and may well drive those addicted to cigarettes to turn to crime to feed their habit.

The gangs, says ACT, will be rubbing their hands with glee, a sentiment ASH chair professor Robert Beaglehole echoed. He said despite the fact he supports the new legislation, he is concerned about a potential explosion in the black market. 

But surely for there to be a black market, there has to be a market, and if tobacco is not readily available to a generation then that demand won't be there.

I know it's not as simple as saying thou shalt not. If it were that easy, we'd all be living in a perfect world.

But surely, given that New Zealand smoking rate is already so low with around 8% of adults smoking daily, that's not a big number, being smoke free by 2025 is one of the more achievable aspirations of this Government and may well be the only one they ever do achieve.

Surely you would not want kids smoking.

Even if you love your durries - it's an extravagance that you enjoy, that you can afford, that you're not going to give up - you wouldn't want your kids doing it.

Although cigarettes are easy to transport, easy to hide, easy to become a currency on the black market, surely it's worth it if it means generations of New Zealanders never ever pick up a cigarette.   

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.