New Zealand plans to ban young people from ever buying cigarettes in their lifetime in one of the world’s toughest crackdowns on the tobacco industry, arguing that other efforts to extinguish smoking were taking too long.

People aged 14 and under in 2027 will never be allowed to purchase cigarettes in the Pacific country of five million, part of proposals unveiled on Thursday that will also curb the number of retailers authorised to sell tobacco and cut nicotine levels in all products.

“We want to make sure young people never start smoking so we will make it an offence to sell or supply smoked tobacco products to new cohorts of youth,” New Zealand associate minister of health Ayesha Verrall said in a statement.

“If nothing changes, it would be decades till smoking rates fall below 5 per cent, and this government is not prepared to leave people behind.”

Currently, 11.6 per cent of all New Zealanders aged over 15 smoke, a proportion that rises to 29 per cent among indigenous Maori adults, according to government figures. The government will consult with a Maori health force in the coming months before introducing legislation into parliament in June next year, with the aim of making it law by the end of 2022.

The restrictions would then be rolled out in stages from 2024, beginning with a sharp reduction in the number of authorised sellers, followed by reduced nicotine requirements in 2025 and the creation of the “smoke-free” generation from 2027. The package of measures will make New Zealand’s retail tobacco industry one of the most restricted in the world.