Smoking rates among Australian children and teens hit record low

[poledriver]

Smoking rates among Australian children and teens hit record low

Cigarette smoking among Australian youth has hit a record low, as researchers hail a possible "smoke-free generation" thanks to an aggressive public health drive deterring people from lighting up.

The decline was applauded as a success story, with plain cigarette-packaging laws and higher prices credited as factors, according to a report published in the Public Health Research and Practice journal.

The research found smoking rates among young people aged 12-17 had fallen to record lows, with only 3.4 percent lighting up daily. The report did not provide data to compare smoking rates in previous years.

"I think that these data are giving us hope that within our lifetime, we could actually see smoking push close to one or two percent amongst young people and we've never seen smoking this low amongst adolescents," the paper's lead author Anita Dessaix said.

"It is potentially the start of a smoke-free generation for us, which is very exciting."

The researchers found that reported smoking rates were continually declining among 12- and 17-year-olds. Smoking rates in NSW among youths had plunged from 23.5 percent two decades ago to 6.7 percent in 2014, the paper noted.

"Similar trends are being mirrored across Australia amongst secondary school students. At an adult population level we've also got smoking at record lows, sitting at about 15 percent," Ms Dessaix, the cancer-prevention manager at the state government-funded Cancer Institute NSW, added.

"So all of these are very encouraging signs that the different policy and programme measures that are in place in tobacco control are contributing to these declines."

The researchers, who also came from NSW's health ministry, found that factors supporting the reduced smoking levels included higher prices for cigarettes, smoke-free zones, plain-packaging laws, restricted tobacco advertising and public education campaigns.

But Ms Dessaix said despite the "true public health success story", authorities could not be complacent as tobacco was being marketed through new avenues such as video games.

"Continuing to monitor tobacco promotions through these non-traditional media and looking at potential control measures and ensuring we've got an anti-smoking presence there is going to be important moving forward," she said.


Read more at http://www.9news.com.au/health/2016...uth-hits-record-low-study#hem24MocjRCBllVH.99

 

[garbagegutz]

not sure if this is a good news story - pricing fags out of the range of kids surely leads them to other challenges?

 

[poledriver]

I think it's great news. Who wonts more people dying from cancer? Kids picking it up at a young age because they can afford it means they are much more likely to become addicted and possibly life long smokers who will be in line to get cancer and die a slow agonising death.

Look at Indonesia and many Asian countries with cheap smokes, loads of young kids smoke because it is affordable

Key facts

Tobacco kills up to half of its users.
Tobacco kills around 6 million people each year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.
Nearly 80% of the world's 1 billion smokers live in low- and middle-income countries.
Leading cause of death, illness and impoverishment

The tobacco epidemic is one of the biggest public health threats the world has ever faced, killing around 6 million people a year. More than 5 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while more than 600 000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke.

Nearly 80% of the more than 1 billion smokers worldwide live in low- and middle-income countries, where the burden of tobacco-related illness and death is heaviest.

Tobacco users who die prematurely deprive their families of income, raise the cost of health care and hinder economic development.

In some countries, children from poor households are frequently employed in tobacco farming to provide family income. These children are especially vulnerable to "green tobacco sickness", which is caused by the nicotine that is absorbed through the skin from the handling of wet tobacco leaves.

 

[SixBuckets]

I don't think the price has that much to do with it. Admittedly I haven't smoked in over ten years, but I did smoke from my early teens to my early twenties and I frequently chose to spend my money on cigarettes over essentials like food. Maybe cigarettes are now expensive enough that kids aren't getting hooked in the first place, but IME people with a smoking habit (even young people) will find the money even if they're pricey.

 

[TheBlackPirate]

Plain packaging laws were probably responsible and I support plain packaging laws. Frankly drugs shouldn't get advertised. Any drug including alcohol, cannabis, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, and psychedelics shouldn't get advertised period.

I admit the images on Australian cigarettes are overkill. Identical packaging between brands with simple honest labeling describing the risks of using the drug and providing addiction resource contact information is sufficient. The idea is advertising shouldn't influence psychoactive consumption period.


Look at these. I enjoy Last Week Tonight. John Oliver and his writers are excellent at informing people about these topics in an entertaining way.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Tobacco (HBO)
[video=youtube_share;6UsHHOCH4q8]http://youtu.be/6UsHHOCH4q8[/video]


Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Marketing to Doctors (HBO)
[video=youtube_share;YQZ2UeOTO3I]http://youtu.be/YQZ2UeOTO3I[/video]

 

[malakaix]

I don't think the price has that much to do with it. Admittedly I haven't smoked in over ten years, but I did smoke from my early teens to my early twenties and I frequently chose to spend my money on cigarettes over essentials like food. Maybe cigarettes are now expensive enough that kids aren't getting hooked in the first place, but IME people with a smoking habit (even young people) will find the money even if they're pricey.

I think it's a combination of price and increasing laws restricting where you can smoke that has slowly lead to more of a non-smoking culture, which has had a roll-over effect onto the younger generation. It is slowly becoming 'socially unacceptable'.

When I was living in parts of Eastern Europe, there were no laws governing where you could smoke (This is slowly changing). You could smoke inside bars, clubs, restaurants and cafe's.. as a result you were always breathing in second hand smoke as were the children so the chance of picking it up as a habit was much higher, the cigarettes of course were dirt-cheap which definitely exacerbated the issue but I think the social acceptance of smoking is what really allowed it to become predominant.

 

[.:Holy::Toast:.]

I like this because this phenomenon illustrates that it is seems to be much easier to reduce usage of drugs through legal regulation opposed to criminal persecution.
I still think the majority of the decline is due to ever-increasing social stigma against smoking, obviously in combination with ridiculous price increases.
$15/pack for some brands in Canada? No fucking thank you, that cuts into my weed money