Smoking rates at record lows
Posted Sep 8, 2011 05:17:10 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new study reports a record low number of Canadians are smoking.
Statistics Canada says the smoking rate dropped to 17 per cent in 2010, down from 25 per cent when the Canadian Tobacco Use Monitoring Survey was first conducted in 1999.
Public Health in Waterloo Region, which also tracks smoking rates, is seeing similar numbers locally.
“That’s basically one in five people, aged 12 years and older, identify themselves as either daily or occasional smokers,” says Jonathan Mall, Manager of Tobacco and Cancer Prevention with Public Health.
The StatsCan survey suggests smoking rates have also significantly declined among teens aged 15 to 17, where usage fell to nine per cent, the group’s lowest recorded rate.
It’s a number that’s encouraging to Mall as well, who believes targeting teens is an effective anti-smoking strategy.
” (Stats show) if youth don’t start smoking by the age of 18 then, typically, they won’t become life long smokers,” Mall notes. “But if they do start smoking before the age of 18, the majority of that age group that do start smoking continue on to become life long smokers.”
The federal government implemented measures to curb tobacco marketing aimed at youth in 2010, specifically in response to an increase in small-cigar smoking.
And it’s in this area in particular where Mall admits more work needs to be done.
“There’s more to tobacco than cigarettes,” Mall insists. “There’s emerging tobacco usage around cigarillos and flavoured cigarillos as well as chew tobacco, which is a tobacco product that should not be ignored, particularly with the youth population.”
Region of Waterloo Public Health offers a variety of smoking cessation aids. You can find details by following this link.
