Guest Post: Sensible policy making up in smoke

A guest post by Connor Molloy:

No one denies that smoking is bad for you. 

Everyone has seen the disturbing images displayed in advertising campaigns or heard the wheezing cough spluttering from the lungs of a lifelong smoker. Those in my generation have vivid memories of Harold the Giraffe visiting schools to scare children with photos of blackened lungs. It worked; everyone knows that smoking is a bad idea.

Yet some people are still unable or unwilling to quit and so the Government is trying new smoking-reduction strategies. But their latest plans fail the litmus test of good law making. 

Even if you don’t smoke, there is good reason to be concerned about the latest piece of Smokefree legislation. Gone are the days where smoking laws only affect smokers.

The latest push in the war on tobacco creates an effective prohibition and will push law-abiding citizens towards gang-run tinny houses just for a full-bodied cigarette.

Right now, around 15% of smoked tobacco in New Zealand is from the black market. The three proposed changes to our smoking laws will be sure to see this figure reach at least the levels seen in Australia where one in five cigarettes is purchased on the black market. 

The first proposal will reduce the maximum level of nicotine in cigarettes by 95%. This is effective prohibition. If the level of nicotine is too low for an addicted smoker to get a hit, they will have to smoke many times the amount of tar (and tax) for the same hit or will resort to the black market where tobacco is full strength and tax free. 

We saw this during the alcohol prohibition in the US where, despite very low alcohol beverages being available, home-brewed and -smuggled spirits were commonplace as people simply did not want the low alcohol alternatives. 

The second proposal will slash the number of retailers from over 6,000 down to only 600. Just a fraction of the number of postcodes in the country leaving many communities without a tobacco retailer – except the local Mob. 

It is not clear that reducing the number of tobacco retailers will encourage smokers to quit. This proposal will introduce a further cost to smoking in terms of time and petrol, but if a smoker has persisted in their habit after a decade of excise tax hikes, it is difficult to believe this small additional cost will push them to quit. Instead, they will simply have even more incentive to become black market consumers.

Lastly, the Government wants to introduce a Smokefree generation where anyone born after 2009 will never be able to legally purchase cigarettes. Not only will this lead to absurd consequences where in the near future a 30-year-old will be slapped with a $50,000 fine for giving their 29-year-old friend a cigarette but we will end up with a complete prohibition for an entire generation. 

For these people, the only source of tobacco will be the ever-growing black market that will have been supercharged by the first two policies.

These black market retailers will not ask for ID and certainly won’t care about the levels of harmful chemicals present in their product.

What we will end up with is a situation where young people are targeted by suppliers from the unregulated black market leading to more people smoking more dangerous cigarettes and paying no tax – the ultimate own goal of unintended consequences. 

There’s no point in having policies that sound good if they only serve to make things worse. 

Every step of the way, non-smoking taxpayers will be footing the bill for the newly created costs of effective prohibition. 

Illicit trade of tobacco will become the new norm and the only way to access full strength tobacco products. We regularly see reports from customs of tobacco seizures at the borders and homegrown super-strength tobacco is not illegal. This law will be a cash cow for organised criminals who don’t pay a cent in tax.

Our police, customs and the courts will be even more thinly spread than they already are wasting money on enforcement and directing valuable resources away from more important things.

Proceeds from the black market will finance sophisticated organised crime operations that push more costs and misery onto hardworking taxpayers.

Tax-free tobacco purchased illegally means that the associated health costs will be borne by all taxpayers.

Minister Ayesha Verrall is already claiming victory, putting out press releases stating that the “Government’s plan to reduce smoking is working” with 56,000 people quitting over the past year. But her new policies have not even come into effect yet.

At every turn, the Government has made it more difficult for people to access the single most effective quitting tool we have – vaping. The safer cigarette.

After years of stagnation in smoking rates, we finally started to see a rapid reduction in smoking as vaping became a viable alternative to the cancer sticks.

People are quitting smoking in spite of the government’s policies, not because of them. 

We know from Public Health England that vaping is around 95% less harmful than smoking and yet the government’s efforts to reduce smoking are actively harmed by the way they restrict and stigmatise vaping. 

The current restrictions on the vape flavours that can be sold at dairies along with restrictions on nicotine levels significantly increase the barriers for smokers to make the switch. 

What’s even more ridiculous is that it is illegal for a dairy worker even to suggest vaping to someone who is trying to purchase cigarettes. This government appears set on isolating an entire group of people from safer alternatives because they don’t like what those alternatives are for no explicable reason

Under the tobacco prohibition, smokers won’t even have the option to switch to vaping when the supplier is a gang member at their local tinny house – what’s more likely is that they get upsold onto even more addictive and harmful substances that are even more lucrative.

Rather than using a smoke and mirrors deception to convince people that making something illegal will make it disappear, Minister Verrall should recognise that the only pathway to a Smokefree country is one that prioritises safer alternatives over prohibition. 

Connor Molloy is a Researcher at the New Zealand Taxpayers’ Union. Disclaimer: 2.1% of the Taxpayers’ Union annual income is from membership dues and donations from private industry, which includes contributions from the nicotine, alcohol, sugar, and construction industries. We gratefully accept any legal donations from anyone wishing to support our work, but our policy positions cannot be influenced by donations. For more information on our mission and how we are funded, please visit: www.taxpayers.org.nz/our_mission