The prevalence for daily smoking had dropped just a fraction from 6.9 to 6.8 percent. Photo:
Daily smoking numbers have plateaued at 6.8 percent as the country looks down the barrel of its Smokefree 2025 goal.
In the year to July 2025, the latest New Zealand Health Survey showed the prevalence for daily smoking had dropped just a fraction from 6.9 to 6.8 percent, while the prevalence of daily vaping had increased slightly from 11.1 percent last year to 11.7 percent this year.
The estimated number of daily vapers this year was 509,000 in 2024/25, up from 33,000 in 2015/16.
Vaping was highest in the 18 to 24 age-group, with more than one in four vaping every day.
Meanwhile, the estimated number of daily smokers has nearly halved since 2011/12, decreasing from 572,000 to 294,000.
Prevalence of daily smoking and daily vaping, total population aged 15 years and over, 2011/12 to 2024/25. Shaded area indicates 95 percent confidence interval. Photo: Health NZ
Has Smokefree 2025 gone up in smoke?
Vape Free Kids said the data shows New Zealand has failed to achieve the Smokefree 2025 goal, falling far short of the estimated 82,000 people needed to quit smoking in the last year to achieve the goal.
But Associate Health Minister Casey Costello and Action on Smoking and Health group (ASH) say that's not the case.
Costello said the data is only to the end of June 2025, so the entirety of the year's data won't be known until the next survey.
Ruth Bonita, an Emeritus Professor of Public Health and ASH spokesperson, said she believes it is possible New Zealand could reach the under 5 percent goal of Smokefree 2025 by next year.
Costello and Bonita also both noted that under 25s were already a "smoke-free generation" with smoking rates of around 3 percent.
"This is a real success story," Bonita said.
Small decrease a 'predictable pattern', focus on getting older long term smokers to quit
Bonita said the data shows the country is on the right track, and it's to be expected that smoking rates are no longer declining rapidly.
"As prevalence gets lower and lower [it's] harder to make a bigger impact on it."
Costello said the data very clearly shows the 45 to 64 age group is the demographic of long term addicted smokers that more still needs to be done to reach.
"The progress New Zealand has made means that those who currently smoke cigarettes are mostly older, long-term smokers and since the start of the Smokefree work, they have been the most difficult group to get to quit," she said.
"All of the tools, supports and approaches that have worked so well over the last few years are still in place. We need to build on these and target the key populations - older smokers and especially Māori and Pacific peoples. Māori and Pacifica smoking rates have fallen significantly over the last five years, but this trend has to continue."
She said the Government's approach was to take practical steps to provide smokers the tools to quit and stay quit.
"I want to ensure we are making the best use of the resources in this area, including getting people to engage with quit smoking providers and I'm looking at further regulatory change to ensure we have a regime that reflects the harm of products and has appropriate controls on the market."
Concern about young people vaping
Vape Free Kids are concerned about youth vaping rates.
The group said the youth vaping rate has increased for 15 to 17 year olds from 10.3 percent to 13.6 percent.
They said this means an additional 4000 young people are living with a daily vaping addiction.
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