According to the WHO forecast, Europe will be the problem child when it comes to tobacco consumption
Published: Tuesday, Jan 16th 2024, 13:50
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According to estimates by the World Health Organization (WHO), the number of tobacco users worldwide has fallen by 19 million in the past two years. This is despite the fact that the global population has grown, the WHO reported in Geneva on Tuesday.
It estimates the total number today at 1.25 billion people. Europe is a problem child, said the WHO Director for Health Promotion, Rüdiger Krech. The rate of women using tobacco in Europe is sometimes twice as high as the global average and is falling more slowly than in other regions of the world.
Tobacco use includes smoking, but also chewing tobacco and snuffing tobacco. The WHO is also concerned with e-cigarettes, which do not contain tobacco but nicotine-containing liquids. It rejects these as just as dangerous to health as tobacco products.
E-cigarettes as a problem
Krech described the tobacco industry's activities in the field of e-cigarettes aimed at primary school children as criminal. He referred to thousands of flavors such as "gummy bears" or "vanilla ice cream", which are hardly ever created for adults. He welcomed the ban on e-cigarettes in some countries and called on others to strictly regulate the products. All flavors should be banned. E-cigarettes made children addicted to nicotine, said Krech.
While one in three adults in the world still used tobacco in 2000, by 2022 it was only one in five, the WHO reported. 56 countries are well on the way to achieving the target of reducing tobacco consumption by 30 percent by 2025 compared to 2010. It praised Brazil in particular, which has already achieved a 35 percent reduction, and the Netherlands, which has almost reached 30 percent.
Problem child Europe
According to the WHO, Southeast Asia has the highest proportion of tobacco users in the population with 26.5% of all adults consuming tobacco. However, the proportion there is falling significantly and, according to current trends, the region should be in a better position than Europe by 2030. In Europe, 25.3 percent of adults currently consume tobacco products. In 2030, an average of 23 percent of people in all countries in the European region are still likely to use tobacco - more than in any other region.
According to the report, around one in four (25.5%) of people over the age of 15 in Switzerland used tobacco in 2022. As a trend, the WHO states that a reduction is likely to be achieved in Switzerland, albeit a reduction of less than the targeted 30 percent.
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