
The three policies were world firsts when they were introduced as part of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act in 2023, but were abandoned by the present government when it partially repealed the legislation in February 2024.
Other countries have now taken them up, including the United Kingdom, which is planning to create a smokefree generation, and the United States Food and Drug Administration recently issued a proposal to minimise nicotine in smoked tobacco products.
University of Otago (Wellington) public health research fellow Dr Janine Nip analysed the views of almost 2000 participants — all of whom were smokers or had recently quit smoking — in the New Zealand arm of the International Tobacco Control (ITC) Policy Evaluation Project.
The new study found about 83% of people who smoke or recently quit are in favour of banning the sale of tobacco products to people born after a certain date in a bid to create a "smokefree generation" in New Zealand.
Their findings, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal yesterday, also showed high levels of support for mandatory reductions in the level of nicotine in cigarettes so they are no longer addictive, and 75% of participants were in favour of having only very-low-nicotine cigarettes available for purchase.
Just over 35% of those in the study supported substantial reductions in the number of retailers able to sell tobacco.
Dr Nip said all three policies had significantly greater support from people who had recently quit smoking, compared with those who still smoked, and from people who were not daily smokers.
Almost 57% of those surveyed said they supported the Smokefree Aotearoa goal of having less than 5% of New Zealanders smoking daily by 2025.

Its impact was substantially greater among those from lower socio-economic groups and Māori, Dr Nip said.
Research senior author and Aspire Aotearoa Research Centre co-director Prof Richard Edwards said about 50% of those surveyed anticipated they would reduce the amount they smoked, quit smoking completely or switch to vaping if only very-low-nicotine cigarettes were available or if there were substantial reductions in the number of retailers selling tobacco products.
"This shows these measures have the potential to significantly reduce smoking prevalence and to do it equitably.
"Our findings call into question the government’s decision to abandon these game-changing measures to mandate very-low-nicotine cigarettes, introduce a ‘smokefree generation’ and greatly reduce retailer numbers.
"Other countries, like the UK and the USA, are now moving ahead of Aotearoa in introducing these measures to protect their people from tobacco-related harm."
Prof Edwards said only a minority of participants thought they would attempt to obtain cigarettes with a higher nicotine content if very-low-nicotine cigarettes were introduced.
This contradicted arguments that this measure would lead to a much bigger illicit market in tobacco, he said.
The data for the study was collected before the three smokefree measures were passed into law and subsequently repealed.