The Case for Banning Cigarette Filters: Addressing a Consumer Fraud, Smoking Decoy and Environmental Hazard

The Government’s proposed Smokefree Aotearoa 2025 Action Plan sets out a perceptive vision for reducing smoking prevalence and ensuring that, once the goal is reached, future generations will remain smokefree. Among the evidence-based measures set out, the plan includes proposals to “make smoked tobacco products less addictive and less appealing”. In this blog, we examine the Government’s specific proposal to prohibit filters and disallow innovations, additives, and other product changes that sustain the appeal and addictiveness of smoked tobacco products.