The point of the law is to prevent anyone born after 2008 from buying cigarettes. Hardcore users that are older than that can continue to purchase tobacco.
Right, those born after 2008 will have to buy their cigarettes illegally.
Illegal cigarettes are something deeply ingrained in my mind as part of the trade from the mafia. I'm now imagining guido looking men with kiwi accents.
I used to (illegally) order cartons from Eastern Europe when I was a broke college kid. They didn't taste as good, but were less than half price of US cigarettes!
When I was a kid in the 80-ties parents sent me to buy cigarettes for them. It was not illegal to sell them to minors. I guess there'll be reversal of that practice in New Zealand.
When I was a high school kids in the 90s, the dairy across the road from the school would sell individual cigarettes to the kids for 10c each. Utter scumbags. How many addictions began with that thin end of the wedge.
"dairy" is Kiwi for a convenience store, Off License, Superette. I remember being surprised moving overseas and calling it a dairy nobody knew what I was talking about https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_(store)