New Zealand plans lifetime ban on cigarette sales to stamp out smoking

The New Zealand government plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world's toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long.

People aged 14 in 2027, when the law is scheduled to come into effect, will never be allowed to legally purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of five million, while the level of nicotine in all cigaretttes on sale will be reduced.

"We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or