Leave it to the good folks of New Zealand to be at the forefront of the war against big tobacco. On Tuesday, New Zealand announced plans to phase out tobacco smoking by imposing a lifetime ban on young people buying cigarettes. That means cigarettes can't ever be sold to anyone born on or after Jan. 1st 2009. All of this, and yet New Zealand still has a plan in place to become smoke-free by 2025.
The new law also shrinks the number of retailers allowed to sell tobacco from around 6,000 to 600 and decreases the amount of nicotine allowed in tobacco that is smoked. Lawmakers voted along party lines in passing the legislation 76 to 43.
All of this comes after New Zealand recently also imposed a series of hefty tax hikes on cigarettes in recent years.