Guest Post: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in the Government’s Tobacco Prohibition Crusade – the Smokefree Environments & Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill

A guest post by Jordan Williams:

If you’re in the 85% of New Zealander’s who don’t smoke, or 95% of younger people now smokefree – you’d be forgiven for thinking “tobacco laws, no impact on me”.

Well, not so fast, you virtuous fresh-air breather. Let us recap the latest dystopian, desperate policies this Labour Government are hell-bent on bestowing on everyday New Zealanders.

For a government so deeply committed to breathing new life to Ronald Reagan’s failed war on drugs, they would do well to remember his other advice – the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the Government and I’m here to help”.

Could a cause as noble as reducing smoking drive a fundamental reshaping of communities’ and the next explosion of thriving black market crime?  Prohibitionist policies have consequences for wider society.

Hard-working neighbourhood dairies and convenience stores gone, closed for good. Replaced by tinny houses for cigarettes a new boom-time for the usual benefactors of prohibition – organized criminal gangs. Many imported from across the ditch and bringing their smuggling connections with them, look set to receive a $2 billion dollar payday on top of the current $270 million of evaded tax each year.

But let’s start with the ‘good’ – credit where it’s due and all of that.

1. Introduction of licensing for selling smoked tobacco (cigs and roll your own) – seems fair, arguably overdue as a concept considering other regimes. The problems will come in the red-tape, fees, and lottery style implementation.
2. Broadly captures only ‘smoked tobacco’ for now, with vaping appropriately exempt from the more heavy-handed, prohibitionist measures. Some smokers will hopefully be motivated to switch and escape their $9,000 annual tax donations which come with a daily smoking habit.
3. No new taxes! (Just that pesky yearly CPI increase)

The Bad – the emperor has no clothes.

1. In reducing the availability of cigarettes, this will consequently reduce the availability of vaping products which are meant to be there for the smokers now forced cold turkey. As the footfall and associated revenue disappears, so too will thousands of mum & dad convenience stores.
2. Those ‘hole in the wall’ vape shops opened by some dairies (the direct result of this Government banning flavours) – the Government has heard the cries of concerned parents and school principals and banned those too. A double whammy for small businesses which will adversely impact rural and remote communities with the highest smoking rates the most.
3. Enormous new compliance costs for both the tobacco and vaping industries will see prices go up for consumers – another tick in the box for Grant’s ‘inflationary pressures’ checklist.
4. Prohibition by stealth – rather than following proven models of the EU or a dozen other countries with common-sense tar and nicotine ceilings, Labour prefers to do things their way. Not satisfied with smokers paying through the nose for $30-40 packs of smokes (80% of which is tax) – it expects Kiwis to keep paying this for nicotine-free cigarettes rather than a black-market of cheaper, normal-strength smokes.

The downright Ugly

1. While ‘licensing’ of all current retailers seems reasonable, what the Government plans to use this for is cruel and unusual punishment.  According to the Minister in charge, Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall, they will cull over 8000 retailers down to 500. This despite the legislation proposing no such number. But this is a majority Government remember, so you can shove your consultation – it’s happening. That’s 400,000 customers who will no longer be visiting 7500 stores to buy their milk, bread, ice block and overpriced pack of smokes. Will smokers really drive miles to the nearest legal shop, or pay a visit to the newly minted tinny tobacco house down the road?
2. Having said all that, it won’t matter if it’s 8000 or 500 shops. If they can only sell zero-nicotine garbage no one wants, then the whole licensing scheme is redundant. Maybe that’s their plan?
3. A “Smokefree Generation”. Let’s be clear, nobody wants our future 18-year-olds taking up smoking. But do we want their new adult choices completely stripped away from them? Young people don’t smoke anymore but it seems no one can be trusted. Not adults, not parents, and not the health education system which has seen NZ already achieve a smokefree generation. The madness with this particular prohibition is you get to the stage where you’ll have 40-year-old Dave getting his smokes illegally from 41-year-old legal Roger, who could cop a $50,000 fine for ‘supplying the smokefree generation’.

This is the epitome of the Labour Government’s ideological fantasy – grab headlines around the world, but with absolutely flawed, faulty policy which treats Kiwis as guinea pigs.

It would be remiss not to mention the winners in all this. Customs New Zealand have been sounding the alarm for years now.  A “booming tobacco black market increasingly operated by organized crime”, the proceeds of which fund drug smuggling, money-laundering and other nefarious activity.

Can’t be arsed driving 40kms to the one surviving tobacco retailer? No worries, the local tinny house should have you covered.

Just turned 21 and fancy a cigar and whiskey with your old man? Nope, that’s “smoked tobacco” so either make it a birthday trip to Cuba, or you’ll have to deal with the gangs for that one too.

Regular hard-working Kiwi who still enjoys a smoko break? Yeah, Nah. You won’t be able to get legal ciggies anymore, not with the nicotine you want. So off to see those nice friendly black-market smugglers for a discount carton in its fully branded glory.

Welcome to the future, the Government is here to help. All 400,000 of you still smoking will magically quit overnight with vaping or cold turkey. Prohibition is what you needed all along.

Even the Government’s own Cabinet Papers include warnings of escalating criminality, black-market supply, mental health consequences and even family violence. Not to mention the explosion of violent ram-raids concentrated on the lucky winners of 500 tobacco licenses.

With such a long list of highly likely negative outcomes stacked against it, it all seems a bit bonkers.

Kind of reminds me of that other law rammed through recently which did nothing except prevent young first-home buyers from getting a mortgage. Labour was warned about that one too.