More 'young' people smoking study invites more questions than it answers

The story I was unable to respond to immediately when I was away last week was the claim that smoking among the 'young' increased by 25 per cent during the first lockdown.

According to Cancer Research UK who funded a UCL study:

This equates to over 652,000 more young adults smoking compared to before the pandemic, according to the charity’s estimates.

These results were seized upon by the media which reported the story as follows:

Smoking surge in young during Covid lockdown (BBC News)
Number of young smokers rose by a quarter in first lockdown, England study shows (Guardian)
Smoking among young people increased by quarter during first Covid-19 lockdown (Sky News)

Note the emphasis on 'young'. Now I don't know about you but when I see that word I generally think of teenagers or – maybe – young adults (18-24) but that's a relatively new concept because I don't remember anyone talking about 'young adults' when I was that age.

Read the story more carefully however and you'll find that the alleged 'surge' in 'young' people smoking actually covers the 18-34 age group.

To put this in perspective, when the Office for National Statistics publishes the official smoking rates it splits the population into six age groups:

18-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65 and over

In contrast CRUK appears to have conflated two of these age groups (18-24, 25-34) into just one.

This is significant (I think) because when the ONS published its last 'Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2019' it noted that 'Those aged 25 to 34 years had the highest proportion of current smokers (19.0%)'.

The same was true in 2018 when the smoking rate for the 25-34 age group were 19.2 per cent and 2017 when it was 19.7 per cent.

The indiscriminate use of 'young', 'young adults' and 'young people' will have led many people to believe that the estimated 25 per cent increase in the number of 'young' people smoking referred to the 18-24 (or younger) age group when – if that estimate is accurate – a significant majority will be in the older (25-34) group that we already know contains the 'highest proportion of current smokers'.

But even if I'm right, does it matter? I think it does because many anti-tobacco laws are introduced on the pretext that they will prevent or discourage genuinely young people (teenagers in particular) from smoking.

This, after all, was one of the main arguments in favour of the display ban, plain packaging, and the ban on menthol cigarettes.

The campaign to increase the age of sale to 21 is a good example of targeting young adults but it ignores the inconvenient fact that at 18 you are officially an adult and should be allowed to do all the things that any other adult – young or old – can do.

Scaremongering about an increase in the number of 'young' people smoking – when the definition of 'young' has been stretched to include those in their mid thirties – is clearly an attempt to alarm and then bounce the Government into introducing further anti-smoker measures.

In truth the UCL study, if it is accurate, probably indicates no more than a rare blip in the long-term decline in smoking rates across ALL age groups.

Naturally this has been ignored by the anti-smoking industry so let's hope there are enough people in Number Ten (I gave up on the Department of Health years ago) who can see through this charade.

And when I say 'charade' I'm not joking.

The CRUK financed study covers the first lockdown – in spring 2020 – so the results are not even based on recent data. A lot may have changed since then.

For example, you will remember that last year ASH argued that ONE MILLION smokers had quit since the pandemic arrived in the UK.

That claim – hotly disputed by Forest and others – was made just over a year ago after the first lockdown and despite there being little evidence to back it up the headline-grabbing figure was still being quoted as fact earlier this year.

I've noticed though that ASH doesn't mention it any more. It served its purpose and the tobacco control circus has moved on.

Now, with the help of a compliant media, we're being sold a completely different story about rising smoking rates among the 'young' during the very same period that one million smokers were supposed to have given up.

The reality, which even this study acknowledges, is that overall, taking into account all age groups, smoking rates appear to have remained pretty stable since the start of the pandemic.

But that's not much of a story hence the focus on 'young' smokers.

Something else that struck me were the reasons given for the alleged rise in smoking among 'young' smokers. One factor, it was suggested, might be stress caused by lockdown.

You couldn't make it up! For years the argument that many people smoke to relieve stress and anxiety has been shot down by anti-smoking campaigners who say it's more to do with addiction induced by those evil tobacco companies.

Now, finally, I read this:

Lead researcher Dr Sarah Jackson, from University College London, said: "The first lockdown was unprecedented in the way it changed people's day-to-day lives.

"We found that many smokers took this opportunity to stop smoking, which is fantastic. However, the first lockdown was also a period of great stress for many people, and we saw rates of smoking and risky drinking increase among groups hardest hit by the pandemic.

I doubt that ASH will ever admit the role stress plays in smoking. That degree of empathy and understanding is far beyond them. That apart, they're far too busy demanding further government action to force people to quit.

Responding to the CRUK-funded study:

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of health charity ASH, said swift action was needed to reverse this worrying trend.

"The growing number of young adult smokers is a ticking time bomb, as smoking is an addiction which puts people on a path to premature death and disability which is hard to escape. The government has committed to publish a new Tobacco Control Plan this year, which is welcome.

"The new figures provide proof, if it were needed, that unless the plan is sufficiently ambitious and well-funded it will not deliver the government's ambition for England to be smoke-free by 2030."

You gotta admire them. A 'health charity' that never misses an opportunity to lobby government. Bravo!

Anyway, one of the first things I did when I got back from holiday was discuss the issue with Trisha Goddard on TalkRadio.

If you have a Twitter account click on the image below to see a short clip. The full interview (if you can find it on the TalkRadio website) is worth watching/listening to.

It was the second time I've been interviewed by Goddard in recent weeks and I've been hugely impressed. Whatever her own opinions – which she keeps largely to herself – she's willing to listen without constant or unnecessary interruption.

It's a genuine debate too. The first time I was the sole interviewee and she played devil's advocate, as any good presenter should.

On Saturday there was another guest – a doctor - and we were both given an equal opportunity to make our points.

This time Goddard adopted a more even-handed approach. Unlike most presenters discussing smoking I didn't feel she was taking sides.

Her interviews feel unhurried and are conducted without rancour. It's just a pity she's relegated to a graveyard slot on Saturday afternoons.

Comments

[Misty]

Well, this is a dilemma for them all, isn’t it? Having spent the last few decades painting smoking as the first and only health threat worth invoking divisive, spiteful and unfair legislation against, it now turns out that the Government’s response to an unexpected second one has caused a surge in the first! Ha! I bet they didn’t see that coming when they rushed to lock us all up “for our own protection”!

Isn’t it ironic that modelling their responses to Covid, template-style, on anti-smoking measures should have caused an increase in smoking itself. Apart from smokers, who could have told them, but who are gravely under-represented in the corridors of power, who knew, eh? Maybe that was an unspoken intention or at least (let’s be charitable, here) a known-but-unmentioned likely result. Tobacco-duty income has dropped markedly over the last few decades, and the pandemic has cost the Government a whole heap of money. But more smokers means more income, so …. go figure! Reach for the tin foil hats, folks!

But I digress. Whether they like it or not, the Government have now had the spotlight shone unflinchingly on their priorities. Will they hold true to their devoted anti-smoking stance and lift all lockdown measures “in order to reverse the smoking trend,” or will they hold fast to their lovely new pandemic powers and thus effectively admit that there is (Shock! Horror!) a greater threat to human health than smoking, and that in order to protect people from that, then smoking must necessarily be demoted to a lesser threat?

My money’s on the latter, and recent discussions about extending their “emergency” powers for at least another six months would tend to back this up, even if the real reason is because for the power-crazed who currently rule us – who number in the majority, sadly - it’s simply much more fun to bully, harass, restrict and control a large number of people than it is to bully, harass, restrict and control a small one.