Prohibition not needed

The annual NZ Health Survey results were released yesterday and they’re great news in the smoking and alcohol areas, as the number of smokers and hazardous drinkers has dropped.

The drop in the number of smokers shows we are on target to get down to 5% by the end of 2025, without needing the measures passed by Labour earlier this year (which are not yet implemented), being effective prohibition. The current policy settings are working, primarily because smokers are substituting to vaping – which is far far less harmful (but not harmless).

The alcohol wowsers would also have you believe everything is getting worse, but the official data shows the opposition. Here’s the changes over time:

Smokers

• Current smokers down from 18.4% in 2011/12 to 8.3% in 2022/23. Dropped 1.5% in last year alone.
• Youth smoking (15 to 17 year olds) down from 8.3% to 1.0%!!
• Maori smoking rate down from 40.3% to 20.2%. Dropped 2.1% in the last year.

Alcohol

• Youth drinking (15 to 17 year olds) down in the last year from 56.3% to 50.9%
• Hazardous drinking down from 18.7% to 16.0% in the last year
• Youth hazardous drinking down from 10.2% to 6.3 over last two years

Don’t succumb to the moral panic.