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Damien Grant is an Auckland business owner and a regular opinion contributor for Stuff, writing from a libertarian perspective.
OPINION: Moments before the scene that made Sharon Stone infamous, as she sat cross-legged in the interrogation room, her character took out a packet of cigarettes. “There is no smoking in this building Ms Tramell,” scowled the detective. “What are you going to do, charge me with smoking?” Stone retorted, before lighting up.
Somewhere, lurking in a corner of my office, sits a half-smoked packet that is well over a year old. Some nights, when the weight of my practice becomes too much, I will sit outside in the cold, alone with my thoughts and an instant coffee, and take a moment.
By most objective measures, my life is easy, and yet there is comfort in the self-destructiveness of smoking. It is, I venture to suggest, my right, as a citizen of a nominally free country to manage the stresses of my life as best I can.
Yes. Smoking comes with the risk of cancer and early death. So does being poor, overweight or having to rely on the public health system for medical care.
One in five Māori smoke. This is down from nearly 38% a decade ago. Within the general population 8% of the over-15 population indulge in cigarettes once a day, also a large fall from recent decades but there remains a sizeable cohort that, knowing the risks and appreciating the benefits, chooses to smoke.
The wishes of this minority are going to be trampled upon.
From the first of July next year the number of retail outlets legally allowed to sell tobacco will be reduced to 600; a ninety percent reduction.
From April Fools 2025 only very low nicotine products will be sold. They are so anaemic, just 10% of the current nicotine levels, they will be little more than placebos and even these will be banned for anyone born after 2008.
STUFF
Where does this claim come from, and does it stack up? (First published June 2022)
Of course; this will fail. In the Regulatory Impact Statement for the Smoke Free Legislation, the Ministry of Health conceded: “The illicit market has been increasing, and recommended policy changes are likely to exacerbate this.”
We like to think our remote location and status as an island allows us a greater degree of import control, but our borders are as porous as a paper straw.
This government has been powerless to prevent methenamine, Covid, and even Posie Parker from crossing the border.
We can already access cigarettes that entered the country illegally; to evade tax. If smugglers are willing to risk prison to avoid excise duties they will be building false hulls on catamarans in order to sneak full strength tobacco products when prohibition kicks in. The margins will be huge.
This new regime is popular with white middle class non-smokers, who form the lanyard class in Wellington who devised this regressive regime, who look down their noses at the working class for making what, to a Wellington bureaucrat, is an incorrect lifestyle decision.
Unsplash
The rights of smokers should not be trampled upon, writes Damien Grant. (File photo)
The sanctimonious arrogance of these public servants, who know nothing about the lives, stresses and incentives of those they seek to control through this law, should be an affront to those who believe in personal autonomy, personal responsibility, who, in fact, believe in tino rangatiratanga.
It is tempting to make the case that these policies will not work, because they will not work, but that implies that if only we could enforce these laws that they would be a great idea. This, however, is not what I believe.
The role of the state is to protect the border, build roads and, arguably, provide welfare to those who need it. In the west this has extended to paying for education, health care and Spinoff podcasts, taking an exceptionally liberal interpretation of welfare.
Is it the responsibility of the state to mandate that we, the citizens, must live our best lives? Why do we expect central government to assume the role of parent, and when did we collectively decide that it is appropriate to outsource the responsibility for how we choose to maximise the pursuit of our individual happiness?
This willing infantilisation of ourselves is an abrogation of our responsibility as free people to decide for ourselves how we live, and how we die.
In this land, where we now ironically sing God Defend our Freeland, we have empowered Wellington to, as Sharon Stone rhetorically asked; to arrest us for smoking.
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