22 Jul 2025 | Awareness, Support, and Perceived Impacts of New Zealand’s Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Legislation Among Adults Who Smoke or Formerly Smoked

The 2021 Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan set out a comprehensive strategy aiming to minimise smoking prevalence rapidly by reducing uptake of smoking by young people and increasing smoking cessation among people who smoke. The 2022 Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Act (SERPA) introduced three key measures included in the Action Plan: greatly reducing the number of retail outlets able to sell smoked tobacco products, limiting nicotine in smoked tobacco products so they are non-addictive, and introducing a ‘smokefree generation’ policy. This report summarises evidence from the New Zealand EASE/International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC) Survey on attitudes to smoking and awareness, support, and perceived impacts of the three key measures included in New Zealand’s smokefree legislation.