Last year, New Zealand introduced a steadily rising smoking age to stop those aged 14 and under from ever being able to legally buy cigarettes in the world-first legislation to outlaw smoking for the next generation.
National’s unaffordable tax cuts to be funded by… (checks notes) …giving more people lung cancer.
They would be unable to buy cigarettes, there would be no law against smoking them. That’s an important difference.
So how would you propose we end the sale of tobacco?
Tax it more, and make it available for sale only in specialist retailers, would be a great way to dramatically decrease the amount sold.
I don’t think ending the sale altogether is worthwhile actually, this will merely create a black market for the product.