New Zealand smoking rates fall to lowest on record, but vaping on the rise
The number of people smoking in New Zealand has fallen to a historic low, as the country pushes forward with ambitious plans to wipe out smoking in a generation.
Data released on Thursday showed the number of people smoking daily had fallen to 8%, the lowest rates since records began, and down from 9.4% last year.
Associate minister of health Dr Ayesha Verrall attributed the drop to government interventions, saying the “government’s plan to reduce smoking is working”.
“The number of people smoking fell by 56,000 over the past year, despite the pressures and stress of the pandemic, and smoking rates are now half of what they were 10 years ago,” she said. The minister was “really pleased” to see the downward trend “given other countries saw an uptick in their smoking rates during lockdowns”.
The drop of New Zealand’s overall smoking rate to 8% would place it among some of the world’s lowest prevalences. The most recent OECD average was 16.5%, Australia’s rate is 10.7%, and the UK’s is 13.8%. It’s likely, however, that a substantial portion of
New Zealanders quitting smoking may be switching to vaping. According to the latest data, the rise in daily vape users was larger than the drop in daily smokers: 8.3% of adults are now vaping daily, up from 6.2% in the past year.
In August, New Zealand’s government introduced world-first legislation to stop the next generation from ever being able to legally buy cigarettes. The laws, which have passed their first reading, install a steadily rising purchasing age so that teenagers will never be able to legally buy cigarettes, creating a “smoke-free generation”. Those measures are considered a world first – and have attracted a mixture of praise for innovation and concerns at their untested nature.
As well as the shifting the smoking age, New Zealand’s laws reduce the nicotine in cigarettes, and force them to be sold only through specialty tobacco stores, rather than corner stores and supermarkets. The laws, which the government hopes to have in place next year, form part of a larger drive to make New Zealand smoke-free by 2025. The country has increased fund
ing for health services and campaigns, and rolled out Māori and pacific-specific quitting services.
Some of the biggest drops this year were among Māori, who typically have far higher smoking rates than the overall population. Verrall said a quarter of female Māori smokers had quit in the past 12 months, down from 24.1% last year to 18.2%. The overall daily smoking rate for Māori had dropped from 22.3%, to 19.9%.
“Smoking rates are plummeting,” Verrall said. “Our goal of being smokefree by 2025 is within reach.”