New Zealanders got to interpret and term the incremental increase in the minimum age requirement to buy tobacco that was voted by the House of Representatives on the 13th of December 2022 as a smoking ban although the meaning of this term is what we know as an indoor smoking prohibition following the same rule of a hospital or petrol station. Of course that has become a smoking ban in their country, since the smoking ban that we know of only applies to those of them who are already growing up from being adults at the time the same law was passed, and the rest of the next generations are being permanently banned from smoking while they become adults and subsequently grow up.
The irony of all this being that the cigarettes being unavailable in the market is not what will happen first when there will be nobody to buy them in the foreseeable future, but what will have happened first is that the last smokers entitled to smoke and buy cigarettes will have died when cigarettes are still on sale and they will remain unsold. This macabre plot of the anti-smoking regime of New Zealand is purely unconventional and unacceptable.
Of course, this is a form of deception the majority will not agree with, and the majority of the parliament instead of the population is not sufficient for making a decision that belongs separately to each person alone, but it is deceiving to see a government taking advantage of the existence of the law to make it say what they want.
This is what you would expect a dictatorship to do rather than a democratically elected government that represents those who elected it, while it is obviously abusing its power with which it has been entrusted to turn it against those who have entrusted it.
It is not a matter of those already adults by now being indifferent or that they may agree and the rest can disagree between themselves, the same law equally applies to everyone and all should be equally concerned and involved personally in the legislative process.
The law sets a minimum age requirement to be eligible and entitled to buy tobacco because it aims
- at preventing underage smoking and because it intends to
- ensure the maturity of the same person wanting to smoke.
Meanwhile the same is not happening when that constant becomes a variable that increases incrementally every year that goes by.
This is therefore taking advantage of the existence of the law by circumventing its objectives to express the wishes and the choice made by the government which is an executive power institution and not one that holds legislative power.
The reason why the law sets a minimum age requirement to be eligible and entitled to buy tobacco is not the same one as the one the government of New Zealand has declared it to be on the 13th of December 2022 taking advantage of its existence. Having that in mind I wrote the following comment under a YouTube video that shows the health minister of New Zealand announcing that she was passing the relevant legislation through parliament (the House of Representatives):
If the 2019 recreational cannabis referendum had a positive not a negative result the government would not be able to ban tobacco smoking from adult citizens because drugs would be already on sale in the shops.
Hard luck that it is the labor government that usually takes other people’s decisions that belong to someone else and it is up to you to vote and elect the abolishion of this law upon the labor government changing – it all depends on whether it will happen or not before it is too late!!
Australia and New Zealand are in need of more democracy to overcome this WHO-led and compliant anti-smoking undemocratic regime.
Taking decisions that are owned by other people like whether they will smoke or smoke inside from their position is prohibited for everyone to do and not only the rest of us except from the government. Those politicians are overlooked by the constitution that ensures the liberty of the rest and sets limits on what each politician can decide about and what they can or cannot vote on. Smoking is a personal issue and one that undercarries adult responsibility and it is not for them to decide instead of yourself.
So long as you say and advocate that you disagree and demand your rights to be properly respected someone will listen to you.
The trick of this woman has been that the law sets a minimum age requirement for the purchase of tobacco to prevent underage smoking, and that is usually 18 or it can be 21 to ensure the maturity of the person who decided to smoke, so if that does not happen and they tell you that the minimum age requirement is increasing incrementally each year, the health ministry is taking advantage of the existence of the law to pursue an external cause that is reached through dialogue and discussion and not with her monologue characterising her statement.
In other words she is taking advantage of the existence of the law to adapt it to her choosing because the law has the minimum age requirement set to prevent underage smoking and ensure the proper maturity of the person who wants to smoke.
There is a reason that there is a minimum age requirement to buy tobacco which is not the same one as the one she says. If you tell her that and explain it is unfair pointing out that you disagree she will react individually with her agreement, but that is not the issue here, the majority must agree and that has not been counted or ensured to happen.
The majority that exists among you is not the same majority of the parliament because it represents you. There is indirect and direct democracy involved, and our democracy is indirect because the population is far too large to convene at once. It is good to be clear about and know your rights instead of accepting the unacceptable (and unconstitutional behaviour of this woman).
Commented under https://youtu.be/K4zou30tdPo
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 