Vaping isn’t the only bad habit teenagers are turning to, with a three-fold increase in the rate of cigarette smoking.
Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper says the organisation’s “biggest concern” is seeing smoking levels rise again due to the prevalent use of non-prescribed vapes. Mr Harper said those who use e-cigarettes are three times more likely to become smokers. “After everything we’ve been through as a country to get tobacco smoking levels down, we really can’t afford that to happen,” he told Sky News Australia.
The research by Cancer Council Victoria’s Centre for Behavioural Research in Cancer shows a three-fold increase in current tobacco smoking by 14-17 year olds in just four years, up from 2.1 per cent in 2018 to 6.7 per cent in 2022.
Preliminary data from the first quarter of 2023 shows 12.8 per cent of 14-17 year olds surveyed reported smoking.
Data on e-cigarette use also revealed fewer than 1 per cent of 14-17-year-olds reported vaping in 2018.
In 2022, that figure sat at 11.8 per cent and 14.5 per cent in early 2023.
Lead researcher Professor Sarah Durkin said this was the first time there had been an increase in teen smoking since the early to mid-1990s.
Teenagers are turning to cigarette smoking in droves.
“The earlier a person starts experimenting with cigarettes the greater their likelihood of becoming a regular, long-term user. And we know cigarettes kill up to two in three long-term users,” Professor Durkin said.
The total number of people currently smoking or vaping in Australia over the past four years has risen from 12.8 per cent in 2018 to 16.5 per cent in 2022.
Dual use of both e-cigarettes and tobacco has increased markedly across all age groups, but most steeply among those aged under 35 years.
Public health physician and leading epidemiologist Professor Emily Banks, along with her team at ANU’s National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, has recently published an extensive review of the health effects of vaping.
Their systematic review of cohort studies tracking young people over several years found young people who vape are three times as likely to subsequently take up smoking.