While the percentage of smokers in Estonia is generally decreasing, early smoking among young people has been replaced by smoking e-cigarettes, and they are starting to do so at an increasingly younger age.
The number of daily smokers in Estonia is decreasing year by year and it is mainly men who are giving up smoking. Among young people, however, the trend is currently the opposite, especially among girls and young women. The reason is e-cigarettes, which can be made pleasant with additional sweet flavourings. In this way, e-cigarettes, intended mainly to stop smoking, represent the first step into the world of nicotine for children.
“The use of electronic cigarettes in general is increasing, especially among young people. In recent years we have seen that the trend is increasing. /…/ Today’s young people start doing it much earlier than in the past from an early age age. We’re talking about the fact that today the starting age is 10-11 years old,” said Aive Telling, head of chemical safety and environmental health at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
“If before they mainly produced cigarettes or the first product they started with was a regular cigarette, now we can see that the first product they start with is an e-cigarette,” said Tiina Kuusik, senior specialist in the field of alcohol and tobacco. at the Institute for Health Development.
“If you look at the latest survey data, for example, among 11-year-olds around 10% have already tried an e-cigarette. Among 15-year-olds almost half have already tried it,” he added.
However, the earlier you are exposed to nicotine, the more likely you are to smoke later in life. About half of 15-year-olds who use e-cigarettes or snuff also smoke regular cigarettes at the same time.
Telling confirmed that the use of nicotine products among young people has not decreased compared to a few decades ago.
However, it is still easier for minors to purchase nicotine-containing e-cigarettes in stores than regular cigarettes. If the age was not asked when purchasing e-cigarettes or if they were knowingly sold to a minor, in 60% of cases 45% of minors picked up a normal cigarette in this way.
France has decided to ban disposable e-cigarettes. However, Estonia does not believe that this will have the desired effect, because e-cigarettes with sweetened liquids are already banned, but their availability has not decreased, because sweeteners are still allowed in Latvia. Schoolchildren get them black, that is, from social channels, where in any case their age is not asked.
“It should be a central, joint solution for all countries. It’s quite difficult to fight this problem one by one,” Telling said.
The basis for banning e-cigarettes may be an environmental problem
However, disposable e-cigarettes also pose an environmental problem, which may become the basis for their ban.
“It is important for us, first of all, that these e-cigarettes are collected. That they do not end up in household waste or even on the streets,” said Piret Otsason, advisor to the circular economy department of the Ministry of Climate Change. .
E-cigarettes are an electronic device and the manufacturer’s responsibility extends to them, i.e. they must be withdrawn from the market when used. In general, however, the entire European Union sees them as problematic as disposable products. However, the single-use plastics directive does not apply to them, because it was developed before disposable e-cigarettes came on the market.
“This is such a new product that European Union regulations do not adapt so quickly as new products reach the market. /…/ I myself would expect the European Union to come forward with proposals for more effective measures regarding -cigarettes in terms of electrical and electronic equipment,” End zone said.
2023-12-12 20:06:00
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