It's only a ban if you're born after 2004 and the kids aren't smoking anyway. Our Treaty obligations mean we have to protect Māori from colonial harm. They didn't smoke before the British arrived and smoking is definitely harming them.
So, it is a ban for a certain class of people in the country (based on age) and not an "incentive" to stop smoking. And they cannot just smoke in places that are not near you, as you stated. Slippery slope issues still apply. Did the Maori have chocolate before you destroyed their paradise? Would hate to see that banned. What about alcohol? Did the colonists also bring them evil electricity that pollutes their air with CO2 and their night skies with light? Just wondering how badly you colonists have hurt them over the centuries with your impurities and evil technology and what additional reparations you plan to offer to honor your treaties.
does all chocolate cause harm? and yes, western food does cause significant harm to that population. Spend any time around our hospital day clinics and it's all on display. When half of the adults are obese there's a problem. We resolve that by education, free health care, targetted health care, free exercise programs.
For diabetics, all chocolate (and other sweet treats) cause blindness, kidney failure, heart disease, amputation of limbs and death. Clearly, a nanny state like NZ needs to protect them and the wallets of their taxpayers. Why shouldn't chocolate be banned for them? Yes, but what happens when that does not work and the population continues to get more and more obese as it inevitably will? The only option then, to protect them and the taxpayers' wallets, will be to ban calories after the daily nutritional limit. ALL calories over the daily limit cause harm.
@sarahk is there a strong opposition to this initiative in NZ? There's got to be. For the government to mandate health seems to be an overreach in the government's power that shouldn't sit well with at least some people.