On the 13th of December 2022 the Labor-led government of New Zealand under then-prime minister Jacinda Ardern banned smoking and its sale to all the next generations of New Zealanders who will come of age except from those who are already adults at the time of the law being upvoted by parliament. If this law has not been overturned by then, when all those entitled to smoke will have died cigarettes will macabrely still be available in the market without consumers and customers entitled to purchase them out. Some would wonder what that would be because of.
It’s like saying that those who are already adults at the time before there was a written and democratically elected law can smoke and continue to do so but all those who will become adults in the future, after laws have been passed and voted for with democratic procedures will not be considered to be responsible enough to do so. Because whoever was already an adult before the law was passed can continue to smoke if they did but whoever will become an adult after the law was passed will not be considered responsible enough to smoke.
The Labor Party of New Zealand is not awarding the citizens the responsibility they deserve when they acquire legal responsibility at the age of 18 and so does not consider its compatriots to be responsible enough to smoke. Not only counting from the time they get born but counting backwards from the time they will die they have declared that adult citizens will not be permanently permitted to smoke. If you cannot permanently smoke until you die just like you couldn’t smoke when you got born, then what do you hope to live for?
The law that pinpoints this segregation is considered to be a smoking ban in New Zealand under the terms being set, a totalitarian and unacceptable piece of legislation that deprives citizens of their mature and legal responsibility when that occurs in terms of deciding whether or not to smoke, would not be feasible had the 2019 Cannabis Referendum turned out an affirmative result. Because there would be no point in legalising recreational drugs for sale in the market and delegitimising tobacco smoking which hence would not be possible.
This unacceptable and totalitarian piece of legislation takes advantage of the existence of the law to make it say what the government wants. Its purpose of setting an age limit for the legitimate purchase of tobacco is to prevent and deter underage smoking and ensure the maturity of those wanting to smoke. That is achieved with a constant age limit and not a variable age limit which increases over the top. The increasing variable age limit is therefore not the aim of the law and is not a law that has a justification, but one that takes advantage of the existence of the rest of the law to make it say what the government wants. One that relies on the negative result of the New Zealand 2019 Cannabis Referendum.
Bring Back Smoking Freedom 