Yes, it would have been tobacco prohibition

A living-wage campaigner didn't like my column on tobacco prohibition and complained to the Media Council. 

The Council didn't uphold his complaint on substance but did want the Post to have a disclaimer on our columns about the Initiative's membership base.

The Council's ruling is here. 

Here's what I'd told the Post, and the Council, in response to the complaint:

Please feel free to share this both with the media council and with Mr Herz-Edinger.

I viewed and continue to view the VLNC rules as prohibition on smoked tobacco.

In the same way that near-beers with less than 0.5% alcohol were allowed under American alcohol prohibition, near-cigarettes with less than a tiny amount of nicotine would be allowed under the VLNC rules. It is not prohibition of nicotine, which would continue to be available in vape form. But it would have been prohibition of smoked tobacco.

If we compare 0.5% alcohol beer to the average strength of beer, and the VLNC-allowed levels of nicotine in cigarettes to the average strength of a cigarette, it is roughly equivalent to a 0.2% alcohol rule for beer. So I do not think I am exaggerating here. I went through that calculus here:

“The legislation sets limits on nicotine allowed in cigarettes. The US Centres for Disease Control estimates that the average cigarette has just over 19mg of nicotine per gram of tobacco. From April 1, 2025, Very Low Nicotine Content rules will apply. Under those rules, no tobacco product can have more than 0.8 mg of nicotine per gram.

If a standard beer is 5% alcohol, the VLNC rules are roughly equivalent to banning the sale of beer with more than 0.2% alcohol.”

Those wishing to do so can check the math with a calculator. It isn’t complicated. The VLNC rules set a tighter standard for nicotine allowed in cigarettes than American alcohol prohibition set for alcohol allowed in near-beers.

Had American prohibition included a ban on the sale of near-beers to those born prior to 1900, the creeping increase in the proportion of population forbidden against buying near-beers would have been the minor point

I very much hold that prohibition on cigars, pipe tobacco and cigarettes would have begun the instant that the VLNC rules took effect: 1 April 2025. If that is incorrect, then America never had alcohol prohibition. And my article, here disputed, very clearly set out that I referred to prohibition of tobacco, not prohibition of nicotine. Nicotine would not have been prohibited. I was not taking license or exaggerating for effect or generalising. Smoked tobacco would have been under a prohibitionist regime from 1 April 2025 if the rules maintained a 0.8mg/g threshold. The effects would have been different from American alcohol prohibition, because nicotine would still be available in vape from. But it would nevertheless be prohibition of smoked tobacco.

I had thought that I had made this very clear in the disputed column. I wrote,

“Under prohibition, the illicit market would not just be a way of avoiding excise. It would be the only way of getting a real cigarette. It would be remarkable if Australian crime syndicates, or others, did not plan on supplying the New Zealand market from 2025 – had we gone ahead with prohibition

Tobacco prohibition would not have prohibited nicotine – vaping would remain legal. But illicit tobacco does not carry excise. Shifts to the illicit market provide no health benefits while reducing excise revenue. And because illicit tobacco is cheaper than taxed tobacco, smokers who shift to the illicit market would have one fewer reason to flip to vaping.”

I would have written exactly the same thing regardless of who our members are, because I believe it to be true.

It's a bit funny where total membership subscription fees from our two tobacco company members, over the entire lifespan of the organisation, are a tiny fraction of the amount that the Health Research Council gave to Janet Hoek in a single grant for anti-tobacco work and nobody ever seems to consider that a conflict. One-sided skepticism reigns.