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It’s the end of tobacco branding in Aotearoa.
From today all cigarettes released for sale must be sold in plain, olive brown generic packaging, in line with the recommendation of the Maori Affairs Select Committee inquiry into tobacco harm.
Retailers have until the 6th June to get rid of their branded tobacco stock.
Boyd Broughton from Action on Smoking and Health says ASH first campaigned for plain packaging 30 years ago.
Tobacco companies spent millions of dollars fighting it through television campaigns, legal challenges and setting up fake retail associations.
The law will not apply to e-cigarettes and vaping products, which Mr Broughton says is important because if means less harmful alternatives to smoking can be promoted.
He says since New Zealand banned tobacco advertising on TV in 1963, cigarettes have killed over quarter of a million New Zealanders – and continue to cost us over 5000 lives and over 800 Maori lives per year.
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