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Reductions in
smoking in leading countries
Summary: NZ smoking prevalence is not showing the decreases found in
Australia.and other leading countries.
Factors hindering further reduction in NZ are
- RYO cigarettes cost only $4 a
day to smoke. (2 cents a puff).
- Beliefs that RYOs are somehow safer, when they are not.
- No increase in the inflation
adjusted price of cigarettes since 2000.
- Lack of attractive alternative
products to smoking.
Figure
1. Daily cigarette smoking prevalence, change in the past decade.
Factors favoring faster reduction in NZ are
- a 50% increase in the tobacco control
budget since 2006. (Now up by $18 million pa)
- 80% increase in expenditure on
subsidization of NRT since 2006.
- Fewer young people smoking at
age 15, since 1999, according to Year 10 surveys.
- MoH now funding more hard hitting TV
advertisements about risks of smoking.
- Manufacturers required to
print hard hitting graphic warnings on packets from 2008
- Indoor smoking and advertising
bans well accepted and enforced.
- Change in policy to relax the
restrictions on NRT sales, and to promote more quit attempts.
Figure 2. The proportion of ever-smokers who
have now stopped smoking
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The
slope of the graph gives the trend. The strongest increases have been
in Canada, Australia, and the UK.
The slowest
increase in quitting has occurred in NZ and the USA.
Smokers
can buy cheap RYO cigarettes in NZ, and cheap manufactured cigarettes
in the USA.
Manufactured
cigarettes are expensive in the UK, Australia, and Canada.
In Sweden 71% of smokers
who had also used snuff daily had quit (as against 53% of smokers who
had not).
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Based on Figure 2:
NZ: The proportion of smokers who have quit
has increased slowly. (Figure 2).
Canada: smoking has reduced from 22.9% in 1997 to
15.3% in 2007.
Sweden: 71% of smokers
who had used snuff daily, had quit smoking.
Australia: former smokers
have increased from 24% in 1997 to 25% in 2007. In 1997, 22.5% of
Australian adults smoked; in 2007, 16.6%.
United States: Cigarettes are
more affordable, and are still advertised. Quitting has not increased, in fact former smokers have reduced from
23% to 21% over ten years.
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Sources for data on daily smoking prevalence:
Australia: AIHW NDS Australian Institute of Health and
Welfare, National drug strategy
household surveys. www.aihw.gov.au 1987-2007.
Canada: Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey. www.hc-sc.gc.ca
New Zealand
. NZ Census. http://www.endsmoking.org.nz/enews14Dec06.htm
Sweden Statistics Sweden. www.statveca.com.se
Snuff-using quitters of smoking: Ramstrom LM, Foulds J
Tobacco Control.15: 210-14. www.tobaccocontrol.com
UK General Household Survey..
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ 2007.
USA: Morbidity and Mortality Reports: NHIS
surveys up to 2005, based on daily smoking.
http://www.cdc.gov/search.do?action=search&queryText=MMWR+smoking&x=13&y=9
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