Should the World Follow NZ in Banning Tobacco?

“If you’re a smoker who wants to indulge your habit while gazing over the mountains of the South Pacific, you’d do well to move fast. New Zealand has announced plans to become the first nation in the world to ban tobacco,” Bloomberg opinion columnist David Fickling writes.

“Prohibition won’t happen overnight. Instead, the country will raise the legal smoking age each year, so that people born after 2008 will never be allowed to puff,” Fickling reports.

“Ultimately more absolute measure like that being introduced in New Zealand is worthwhile, even just so the rest of the world can see whether it’s a success or a failure.

“Liberal societies will rightly seek to enhance individuals’ sovereignty over their bodies, and tread carefully when they take those freedoms away. Addictive drugs already violate that sovereignty, though, by making it physically or psychologically painful to give them up. Tobacco prohibition in New Zealand will certainly infringe on people’s freedoms. Tobacco addiction, however, has been doing that for centuries.”

Original article by David Fickling, Bloomberg, December 13, 2021.

Photo by Obby Rh.