​UK Smokers - Lowest Levels since recording began in 1940

As vapers we all know that the amount of people vaping is on the rise and with that the amount of smokers is falling.

Well, that’s good news indeed as has been reported in an article that appeared in The Guardian on 7th October. It says that figures from the tobacco industry in the 1940’s show that well above 50% of over 16’s were smokers. And of these smokers almost two thirds of these were men, with the amount of women smoking peaking in the latter part of the 1960’s.

When the Office for National Statistics began collecting and collating data in 1974, 45% of Brits smoked, and of those 42% were men. Whilst collected data still suggests men are more likely to smoke than women, nearly half of those questioned for their survey claim never to have smoked at all.

The different ways surgery have been carried out in the past leave the figures open to differences in interpretation. However next month the ONS will publish their General Lifestyle Survey which should provide much more detail for analysis. It also will be more far reaching as it also includes 16-18 year olds. It is of note that the ONS survey does not currently record e-cig usage, though owing to the shear number of us now vaping in the UK it is very likely to in future.

Although statisticians seem wary (due to differences in data collection) ministers and the charity Ash (Action on Smoking and Health) see them as positive and furthermore admit that that have been fears held that the spreading use of electronic cigarettes would turn people toward smoking rather than away from been found to be baseless and unfounded.

Ash currently estimates that 2.1 million of us in the UK are now vaping. Their Chief Executive, Deborah Arnott says that of the “people in the UK [who] now use e-cigarettes, almost entirely [these are] current or ex-smokers’”.

She goes on to say that “The drop in smoking also shows that concerns that the use of electronic cigarettes would lead to a renormalisation of tobacco use appear unfounded. The rapid increase in use of these products has coincided with a consistent steady decline in smoking.”

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/07/smoking-falls-lowest-level-uk-recording-started-1940s

Office for National Statistics (ONS)