Short-term dollars at what cost? Repealing New Zealands Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 plan would sacrifice lives and longer-term economic gain

More than 10 years ago, Māori politicians in Aotearoa/New Zealand started a movement to end the tobacco epidemic in the country.1 In December 2022, the then Labour Government finally introduced a comprehensive, evidence-based plan to achieve that vision. Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 prioritised Māori leadership and support to help people who currently smoke to quit. It also contained three game-changing components: reducing nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels, reducing retail outlets that sell tobacco by more than 90% and a smoke-free generation policy that meant it would never be legal to sell combustible tobacco products to people born after 2008.2

Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 provided an exemplar precedent with the potential to change the course of the global tobacco epidemic forever,3 with attendant environmental, economic and social benefits.4 Modelling showed that the combination of measures would rapidly reduce smoking to negligible levels.5 The…

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