And yet they aren’t in a large number of ways. Driving, drinking, voting, gun ownership, the ability to consent to various things, the ability to own some things.

This is different. 'You can't vote because you are currently 17' is VERY different than 'You can't vote now or ever because you are 17 right now.' Or 'You can't drive because you are currently 14' is VERY different than 'You can't drive now or ever because you are 14 right now.'

I think lots of countries have changed their pension rules in a way that treats people born after a certain date differently from people born before a certain date, whether or not they express it in those terms. Is that fundamentally any different from the proposed smoking rule?

Theoretically that is based on actuarial data which says people are living longer and can work longer.

If you can find one where people born before a certain year get a pension and people after it will never get one, then it's a like to like comparison.

It's certainly unfair that the older generation end up with worse health because they aren't protected by this law, it's true.

Whether the law is well intentioned or not, it discriminates against those born after a certain year.

If it is truly necessary to ban people born after 2007 from smoking for their entire lives, this law should not create two groups, it should ban all people smoking at any age.

A drug preference ins't a "class of people". It's just a preference (or an addiction).

People born after a certain year is a class of people. Born on one side can smoke, born on the other side can never smoke.

But it's good for them! Sure. They also speak about smoking being a problem for the Maori. Maybe they should start by banning them from smoking.

They aren't banning a drug preference. They are banning it from a specific group of people.

This is fundamentally broken. There has to be a better way of accomplishing it than setting terrible precedent of yanking privileges for life from a group which can't even vote yet.

How many upper-middle class people do you know who smoke cigarettes?

A lot of them surely snoke hookah or vape, and laws rarely make difference between that and smoking.