Vaping and smoked tobacco regulations published today

Goals to tackle youth vaping rates and secure a smokefree future for Aotearoa New Zealand have taken a significant step forward today with new vaping and smoked tobacco regulations released.

New vaping regulations include:

• New Specialist Vape Retailers (SVR) stores must be at least 300 metres away from schools and marae
• Vape products and their packaging must only have generic flavour descriptions
• Maximum allowable nicotine strength in single-use (disposable) vapes is reduced to 20mg/mL to make them less addictive for youth and non-smokers
• All vaping products must have removable batteries and child-safety mechanisms to improve their safety and better protect our young people.

A timeline of how the vaping regulations will be phased in is available on the Ministry of Health website.

In addition to legislative measures being implemented to address youth vaping, the Ministry of Health, Te Whatu Ora and Te Aka Whai Ora developed health promotion programme Protect Your Breath (PYB) to encourage young people to live vape free lives. This launched on social media and other places that reach young people late last year. A PYB youth-focused online mindfulness series launched in July and the Later Vaper Arcade – an interactive space where young people will be challenged to re-frame and re-position their thinking on vaping – is coming soon.

Smoked tobacco regulations provide:

• Finalised criteria that will be used to select approved smoked tobacco retailers for the smoked tobacco retail scheme. This has responsible people, business location, safety, security and training at the forefront of all considerations. The scheme takes effect from 1 July 2024 and will see the number of tobacco retailers drop to no more than 600.
• Finalised product testing requirements so that from 1 April 2025, we can ensure only very low-level nicotine products are being sold. Full strength cigarettes contain approximately 15-16mg/g of nicotine and low nicotine tobacco will have no more than 0.8mg/g, resulting in a significantly less addictive product.

The smoked tobacco retail scheme application process will open through the Ministry’s Health Advisory and Regulatory Platform (HARP) on 21 September 2023 and applicants wanting to be considered for a place on the scheme have until 12 November 2023 to submit an application.

More information on the Smoked Tobacco Retail Scheme will be available on the Ministry’s website soon. A smoked tobacco timeline is available on the Ministry’s website.