We are in Italy 800 thousand more smokers than in 2019. There have never been many since 2006. Almost one in four Italians smokes, 24.2% of the population. The data are from the Higher Institute of Health in the report released for the World No Tobacco Day.
Explains Silvio Brusaferropresident of the ISS: “The increase in smokers detected by the report is a signal that causes concern and in relation to which it is important to activate prevention actions starting from the youngest to ensure a longer life, with less disability and qualitatively better for us and for those who live next to us ».
Since the last year of detection before the pandemic, there has been an increase of two percentage points: 22 to 24%. The number of people who smoke cigarettes with heated tobacco has also grown: from 1.1% in 2019 to 3.3% in 2022. 36.6% consider them less harmful than traditional ones.
In Italy there are 12.4 million smokers with an average of 11.5 cigarettes smoked per day. 20.4% of smokers light up more than 20 a day. 1.2 million Italians use electronic cigarettes in a more or less habitual way, is 2.4% of the population. 81.9% of those who use electronic cigarettes are smokers. 14.9% of the population are former smokers and 60.9% non-smokers.
The theme proposed byWorld Health Organization for World No Tobacco Day is the impact of this on the planet: cultivation, production, distribution and waste. The initiatives on many beaches that do not want cigarette butts go in this sense. The best known case is that of Barcelona, ​​but there are many examples also in Italy.
Roberta Pacifici, head of the National Center for Addiction and Doping of the ISS, explained how “the pandemic has significantly influenced the consumption habits of Italian tobacco and nicotine products”. New tobacco products and e-cigarettes have added to the consumption of traditional cigarettes and their users are almost exclusively dual consumers.
Just the new products, which are considered less harmful, also lead to infringement laws such as those desired by Minister Sirchia who had ruled out smoking from public places. Those who smoke electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco feel free to use them on means of transport and inside the premises. In 2019, those who felt free to smoke electronic cigarettes in public places were 62.6%, today it is 66.8%.
According to the data of the MohreMediterranean Observatory for Harm Reduction in Medicine, at least 880 thousand people in Italy and about 7 million in Europe have died of cigarette smoking in the last 10 years.
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Source: Vanity Fair
