Anger as New Zealand Ditches World-First ‘Generational’ Smoking Ban

It was the kind of bold public health measure praised and copied around the world: a lifelong smoking ban that would prevent future generations from ever getting addicted to nicotine.

But New Zealand’s new business-friendly right-wing government has decided to scrap the world-leading measure because it wants to increase tax revenues from the sale of cigarettes.

The decision by the newly installed coalition has shocked and angered health campaigners, with one leading academic, Boyd Swinburn, professor of global health at the University of Auckland, saying New Zealand had gone from “hero to zero” with the decision—and others warning that it would cost thousands of lives, especially in the indigenous Maori community.

Read more at The Daily Beast.