Kiwi Regulators Get Tough
Regulators in New Zealand are getting tough by targeting operations on retailers resulting in fines for selling to underage customers
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by Dave Cross
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“It’s great news that ratbag retailers are getting slapped with fines for selling vapes to minors. We just need to see more of it. Enforcement and parental responsibility are key to attacking youth vaping,” says Nancy Loucas, co-founder of Aotearoa Vapers Community Advocacy (AVCA).
AVCA was formed in 2016 by vapers across New Zealand wanting their voices heard in local and central government. All members are former smokers who promote vaping to help smokers quit - a much less harmful alternative to combustible tobacco products. AVCA does not have any affiliation or vested interest in industry - tobacco, pharmaceutical and/or the local vaping manufacturing or retail sectors.
Seven of the retailers failed to ask for identification and sold vape products to a 16-year-old. This is in breach of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Vaping) Amendment Act 2020. If they breach the rules three times, they could face prosecution.
All year AVCA has continually called for rogue dairy owners who sell vapes to minors to have the book thrown at them, saying the Government’s ‘education’ period has long expired.
“Dare I say, it’s mostly convenience stores that are getting infringement notices and fines. The other problem is too many of them have been allowed to partition off part of their shops to become Specialist Vape Retailers, enabling them to sell a full range of flavours. This matter needs greater oversight and re-assessment from the regulator because frankly they’re not specialists,” says Ms Loucas.
Since 2020 only licenced SVRs can stock all flavours. General retailers such as convenience stores are limited to selling just mint, menthol, and tobacco flavours.
“Restricting flavours in general retail has had a huge unintended consequence on the ground. It’s simply led to greater numbers of bad vape retailers. The best way to fix this is to allow more flavours into general retail as ASH is calling for, while getting tough on R18 enforcement,” she says.
AVCA says thanks to vaping, New Zealand is on track to achieve Smokefree 2025 – where five percent or fewer smoke. Another boost to the decade-long national goal will be The Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill. Parliament’s health select committee is due to report back on it by 1 December.
Reiterating the importance of providing access to safer nicotine products for Kiwi adults, Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verrall recently said: “We need to continue supporting people who smoke tobacco to successfully switch to less harmful products.”
“New Zealand is showing the world how to achieve smokefree. You crush the access and appeal of deadly cigarettes, while adopting a Tobacco Harm Reduction approach to ensure a safer and viable nicotine alternative is readily available for adults,” concluded Nancy Loucas.
The Fifth Asia Harm Reduction Forum took place on 28 October in the Philippines. The forum’s footage is now available on the AHRF 2022 YouTube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o1hXi4aAak
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.
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