Around 5.4m adults in the UK aged 16 and above used an e-cigarette ‘daily or occasionally’ last year, according to the latest ONS statistics – overtaking the number of smokers (4.9m) for the first time.
The proportion of current smokers has fallen to 10.6 per cent of the population, the lowest since records began in 2011. The highest proportion of smokers were those aged 25 to 34, at 12.6 per cent, while e-cigarette use was highest among 16-24-year-olds, at 13 per cent. The largest reduction of smoking prevalence since 2011 has been among 18-24-year-olds, falling from 25 per cent to 8 per cent.
The smoking data is compiled from two different ONS surveys – the opinion and lifestyle survey and the annual population survey. The highest proportion of smokers was in Scotland (12 per cent), and the lowest in England (10 per cent). Globally, however, one in five adults are still addicted to tobacco, according to a recent WHO report, although the number of smokers has fallen from 1.38bn to 1.2bn in the last quarter century.
The government’s strategy to promote vaping as a quitting aid while also ‘clamping down’ on youth use and promotion appeared to be having the right impact, said ASH. However the charity pointed out that meeting the 2030 smokefree England target – defined as a smoking rate of less than 5 per cent – will need a 0.9 per cent reduction in smoking rates every year, requiring ‘sustained action and significant investment in support to low-income groups where smoking rates remain highest’. The tobacco and vapes bill, which will ban the sale of tobacco to anyone born after January 2009 and tackle the marketing of vapes to children, is currently being debated in the House of Lords.
A research paper from the Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction (GSTHR) last year stated that the large-scale shift to vaping in the UK had been helped by successive governments making ‘pragmatic policy decisions based on the evidence’ and endorsing vapes as an effective smoking cessation tool. ‘We’ve made a lot of progress and if we embrace the potential of tobacco harm reduction we can reach the 2030 target,’ GSTHR’s David MacKintosh told DDN at the time.
‘It is a significant moment that for the first time more adults consume nicotine through vapes than tobacco,’ said ASH chief executive Hazel Cheeseman. ‘The growth in vaping has almost certainly contributed to the fall in smoking and is therefore to be welcomed. However, the concerns about non-smokers and young people taking up vaping remain. New powers to further regulate vapes in the tobacco and vapes bill are a good opportunity to maintain the current trends by restricting marketing and reinforcing the role of vapes as a quitting tool.’
Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2024 available here