Senior author and University of Otago (Wellington) professor of public health Janet Hoek said New Zealand was one of many countries to apply an excise tax to tobacco products in a bid to reduce their use.
However, people travelling internationally can avoid paying the excise tax or GST by buying their tobacco products at airport duty-free stores.
This undermined New Zealand’s goals to reduce smoking because it prevented the country from earning between $60m and $96m in tax revenue, between 2015 and 2024.
Prof Hoek said the revenue could have been used to support key parts of the New Zealand health system.
"Every week, we learn of new challenges to our health system.
"It is illogical to subsidise tobacco sales when the revenue could do so much to help people in need.
"The excise tax foregone could have supported new cancer drugs, provided elective surgery funding, or increased mental health support available to communities," she said.
Duty-free sales effectively provided "a government-sanctioned price discount" on tobacco products by making it cheaper for people to buy tobacco products which exposed them to serious health risks and subverted the government’s goal of reducing smoking prevalence to minimal levels, she said.
"Reducing smoking prevalence would improve wellbeing in multiple ways.
"It would enhance people’s physical and financial health, improve productivity, reduce pressures on the health system and decrease the heavy burden nicotine addiction imposes."
The new study by the University of Otago and the University of Bath (United Kingdom) called for the government to end duty-free sales of tobacco products as soon as possible.
