What is the future of Cigar smoking in NZ?

SO, by now you will likely know of the Smokefree Environments and Regulated Products (Smoked Tobacco) Amendment Bill that parliament have introduced.

Some of the lines that are being discussed in groups are the limits to the number of retailers; "A person must not sell or offer for sale a smoked tobacco product unless the person is an approved smoked tobacco retailer." and "The maximum number of approved smoked tobacco retail premises in New Zealand must not exceed 600."

But those are by no means the only lines of concern... in fact, those are some of the lest concerning as you read through the bill..

Things like: "The Director-General may suspend an approval granted under section 20I for 1 month", "The Director-General may extend the period of suspension, for a further month, more than once.", meaning that they can stop you selling at random and for as long as they like...

Further, "The Director-General may cancel an approval without any prior suspension" & "The Director-General may, in accordance with regulations, impose any other conditions on the approval."

These things seem to be set up to make it impossible for retailers to make a living from tobacco sales..

And this line! "A person must not sell, offer for sale, manufacture, import, or supply a smoked tobacco product unless the product has been approved by the Director-General." feels like a nail in the coffin..

Assuming that a blanket approval for 'Cigars' will not be allowed, every single line of cigars and maybe even each size within that line, may require it's own approval.. the admin in this alone would drastically limit the options available to us and thats if they approve everything thats applied for! We may very well be heading down the road of only being allow to buy 'X' brand in 'X' size in NZ soon...

Ignoring the fact that the bill seems to be vastly out of touch with reality, it seems to be progressing. With very little info on how they plan to manage the process of applications to become a licensed retailer - and with only 600 being allowed nationwide, but 1200 services stations in NZ currently, will people selling cigarettes take all the spots leaving nothing for the small couple of Cigar retails we have?

Additionally, this bill effectively bans the sale of tobacco products to future generations, by making it illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone born on or after Jan. 1, 2009, putting an end of life date to any business that sell tobacco as their only product.

The out of touch Dr. Ayesha Verrall said, “There is no good reason to allow a product to be sold that kills half the people that use it,” during the legislative process, which brings back the argument that Cigars should be separated from cigarettes, as this does not apply to cigar smokers. The same can be said for the entirety of the 'Smokefree NZ' website, which does not mention the word Cigar a single time on any page...

In fact the only single mention of Cigars in the entire bill itself is under the section the covers duty free importing, where they limit it to 200 grams per person.

How can we all be lumped in with this bill when they clearly have no data or understanding of use of tobacco in cigar smoking?

And let's be clear, prohibition has never worked in any time or place. Ever.

No matter how you look at it, it is a concerning piece of legislation for us all.

What can we do about this? anything?