December 19, 2022
Black market threat to smokefree goal
A leading tobacco control advocate says authorities need to be planning now to deal with an expanding black market if New Zealand achieves the Smokefree 2025 goal of bringing smoking rates below 5 percent.
Action on Smoking and Health head Robert Beaglehole says if the goal is met Aotearoa New Zealand will be the envy of the world – and he credits the efforts of Maori MPs including Hone Harawira, Tariana Turia and Tau Henare.
But he says the black market is anything up to 5 percent of overall consumption.
The measures in the just-passed Smokefree Environments Act – reducing nicotine, cutting the number of retailers selling tobacco and barring sales to anyone born after January 2009 – must be weighed against the fact many people are still dependent.
“Some of them will stop, some will go to vaping, but even when we reach the 5 percent smokefree goal there will be 150,000 people who will be smoking nicotine full complement cigarettes, so where will they go? Yes, I am very concerned about the black market,” Professor Beaglehole says.
He warns a full ban on tobacco products is unlikely to succeed because of the black market.