Demise of smoking greatly exaggerated
Thursday, July 9, 2020 at 14:02 The Office for National Statistics published its annual statistical bulletin on smoking earlier this week.
Here are some of the main points:
In the UK, in 2019, 14.1% of people aged 18 years and above smoked cigarettes, which equates to around 6.9 million people in the population.
If these estimated figures are accurate (see below) it means that one in seven adults in the UK still smoke.
The number (and proportion) continues to fall but let's put this in perspective:
6.9 million is approximately half the number of people that voted for the Conservative party in the 2019 general election, almost twice the number that voted for the Lib Dems (3.67m), and eight times the number that voted for the Green Party (864,743).
Yes, smokers are a minority but not an insignificant one and their habit makes a huge contribution to the local and national economy.
The proportion of current smokers in the UK has fallen from 14.7% in 2018 to 14.1% in 2019.
The ONS describes this fall as 'significant' by which I think they mean 'statistically significant' but is it significant in other ways?
For example, can it be linked to anti-smoking legislation such as plain packaging or the ban on ten-packs introduced in May 2017?
Not really. According to ONS stats, the smoking rate fell from 15.8% in 2016 to 15.1% in 2017, then 14.7% in 2018 and 14.1% in 2019.
Prior to those measures the smoking rate fell far more dramatically – from 19% (2014) to 17.2% (2015), then 15.8% (2016) – a fall generally attributed to the simultaneous growth of vaping.
Talking of which:
In Great Britain, 5.7% of respondents in 2019 said they currently used an e-cigarette, which equates to nearly 3 million adults in the population.
According to the ONS:
This proportion is significantly higher than that observed in 2014, when data collection began, when only 3.7% vaped. In 2019, changes in proportions of those who said they vaped were not statistically significantly different from the previous year.
However they spin it (do I detect the hand of Public Health England in that statement?) it's clear that the proportion/number of vapers in the UK stalled last year.
It's not the first time vaping has flatlined - it happened a few years ago before a mini surge took the figure up to three million where it appears to have settled.
The ONS doesn't speculate why this is happening so I may return to the subject in another post. Meanwhile it's worth noting that:
In 2019, the proportion of vapers was highest among current cigarette smokers (15.5%).
This indicates there is still a substantial number of dual users – over one million, according to my calculation, or a third of all vapers in the UK.
It is commonly assumed that all dual users are transitioning to vaping but, in my experience, there are still a lot of smokers who vape only when they can’t smoke. Cigarettes remain their preferred choice.
Overall though I expect the 2020 ONS figures to be rather more more interesting. First, they should tell us how many smokers 'quit for Covid'. (I suspect it will be significantly less than the 300,000 predicted by ASH.)
The stats should also indicate how many smokers switched to e-cigarettes as a result of the menthol cigarette ban:
Demand for vapes and e-cigarettes has surged more than elevenfold since Covid-19 and the UK ban on menthol tobacco cigarettes, according to one of the UK’s largest retailers of vapes.
Long-term however I'm struggling to see where further significant growth is going to come from.
There will always be a market for e-cigarettes but as long as they are advocated by public health campaigners as a smoking cessation tool – with the ultimate goal of coming off nicotine altogether – I don't see how that is going to strengthen their appeal to confirmed smokers.
Instead of communicating the pleasure of vaping, all I hear from vaping advocates is an endless cycle of stock phrases such as 'harm reduction', 'quit smoking', #VapingSavesLives and #WeAreNotTobacco.
That's not how to get confirmed smokers on side. Everyone knows the risks yet one in seven adults in the UK still choose to smoke. There's a simple reason for that. Many of them enjoy smoking and don't want to quit!
On the subject of which, the ONS says:
In Great Britain, more than half (52.7%) of people aged 16 years and above who currently smoked said they wanted to quit.
Do you remember when we were told ad nauseum that 70% of smokers wanted to stop smoking? Presumably, as smoking rates fall, this estimate will continue to fall too.
The question is, at what point will government and the anti-smoking industry leave smokers alone and accept that adults have a right to smoke without being badgered and bullied to stop?
Final point. I don't dispute that smoking rates are falling (that's clearly evident) but even the ONS admits that:
The data described in this bulletin are based on self-reported behaviours; it is possible that the findings underestimate cigarette consumption and, to a lesser extent, cigarette smoking prevalence (for example, evidence suggests that when respondents are asked how many cigarettes they smoke per day, there is a tendency for respondents to round the figure to the size of the cigarette packet); underestimates of consumption are likely to occur in all age groups.
Either way, the demise of smoking is greatly exaggerated.
The government wants to reduce the smoking rate to 12% by 2022, with England declared 'smoke free' by 2030.
The first target is already in doubt (although it's probably achievable with some statistical jiggery pockery by PHE and the Department of Health), but I don't think anyone believes England will be 'smoke free' (ie smokers reduced to 5% of the population) within ten years.
To achieve that would require the type of authoritarian public health policies that would make even Matt Hancock blush.
After Covid-19 both the government and PHE should have far more important priorities – like how to prevent or tackle a genuine public health emergency.
So what if 6.9 million people are still smoking? Unlike a contagious disease it's a personal choice to smoke and tobacco doesn't destroy the economy. Quite the opposite.
If that doesn't focus minds nothing will.
Reader Comments (4)
The trouble with zealots is that their minds can only focus on one thing and with tobacco control it is destroy smokers by any means even if that entails making them homeless, jobless, and friendless.
The question is, how zealous is this government? Also - What does it define "fairness" to mean? And - how smokerphobic is the health minister who still, as far as I am aware, has not yet apologised for being ASH's Puppet in putting out untrue, or at the very least deliberately misleading, propaganda that promoted the idea that smokers were the biggest covid burden on their NHS with the now debunked claim that smokers are 14 times more likely to get the virus. Not one of these publically funded anti smoker organisations has yet apologied either for trying to push the idea that tobacco smoke infects non smokers with Covid too. Shameful.
One can only conclude that the Government is not aware of the smokerphobic extremists in the department of health or every minister who turns a blind eye to that extremism and enables it without scrutiny is also zealously opposed to smokers too.
Meanwhile, they still like taking in our tax while the only people still showing smoking in adverts or talking about it on TV are those in the anti smoker industry in nicotine adverts that aim to force smokers from the tobacco industry to their industry while also doing their bit to bring tobacco to the next generation of smoker via advertising.
Tobacco conyrol is a scam and one hopes we have a rational and reasonable government that is able to see it and put the zealots back in their box while maintaining sensible restrictions on tobacco sales and promotion to stop under age people from getting their hands on cigarettes or tobacco.
I honestly believe that over regulation has led to the creation of the uncontrolled black market where children are not only never asked for age ID before sale and might even be offered something extra like drugs.
The anti smoker zealotry and war on smokers is literally pushing our children into the hands of criminals and Government so far has done it's best to support that by failing to scrutinise properly the organisations demanding restrictions that enable the black market to flourish.
Government must find a way to live with adult smokers, stop punishing and persecuting us, and allow us to make a "FAIR" contribution in tax revenue.
" ... declared 'smoke free' by 2020"
Oops! I guess you mean 2030, there Simon? But, on that subject, I understand that the term “smoke free” doesn’t actually refer to a country where no-one smokes at all, but in fact refers to a country where regular smokers account for no more than 5% of the population. Which, in a highly populated country like the UK, is still quite a lot of people. I wonder how many people not involved in the anti-smoking industry are aware of that?
On the plus side, if they do ever find a way to manipulate the stats sufficiently to be able to trumpet this magical “smoke free” status, does that then mean that anti-smoking groups will no longer be required, will be defunded and will, finally, get off our backs? After all, from the public’s perspective news of further State spending on anti-smoking initiatives following hot on the heels of loudly-proclaimed “smoke free” news will inevitably be seen as a pointless waste of public money. For surely, in their minds, there’ll be no more need for a State-sponsored anti-smoking industry in a country that is “smoke free,” any more than there’s a need for a State-sponsored anti-drinking industry in a so-called “dry” country or State-sponsored anti-obesity campaigns in countries where the majority of the people don’t have enough to eat.
I think the anti-smoking industry should be just a teeny, weeny bit careful what they wish for ...
Thanks - corrected!
Misty, I think that's why public health activists have turned on fat people. Bigger market, fresh blood, new pool of money, same public hate incitement via a drip drip effect.
Once they get us into a minority that is not worth leeching off anymore, they need a new target to ensure their fat salaries keep rolling in.
Public health is a scam which is why it was totally inadequate in dealing with a real health emergency and epidemic. All it is good for is bullying peoole about their lifestyles for money and funding.