Good news

The Herald reports:

The decrease in smoking rates is larger than usual according to the latest Government health survey 2020/2021.

Smoking rates have decreased across all ethnic groups, and for Māori adults, it’s down by 6.4 per cent. In 2019/2020 28.7 per cent of Māori adults were smoking, that figure is now sitting at 22.3 per cent.

Director for ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) Deborah Hart says all the work that has been put into smoke-free initiatives is kicking in including plain packaging, and taxes on cigarettes, but that in itself is not enough.

“We now have the evidence that vaping is helping decrease smoking rates.”

Vaping rates in Aotearoa have increased by 3.5 per cent in 2020/2021. In 2015/2016, these rates sat at just 0.9 per cent Today, 6.2 per cent of adults are using e-cigarettes daily. A study carried out between ASH and the University of Auckland showed that while some young people are experimenting with vaping, the daily use of an e-cigarette is occurring overwhelmingly in existing smokers.

“What we’re seeing is people transition from very harmful cigarette smoking to a much less harmful product in e-cigarettes or vaping, and that’s been going on for a few years and we’re going to continue to see that I would think,” Hart said.

Good to see substitution happening. Vaping, as ASH says, is far less harmful than smoking.