Fresh - Smoke free North East

Facts and Figures

Tobacco is an industrially produced epidemic

Tobacco killed 100 million people worldwide in the 20th century. The World Health Organisation predicts it will cause 1 billion deaths in the 21st century if current trends continue.

Unlike other epidemics such as AIDS or Swine Flu, this epidemic is courtesy of an industry which has promoted cigarettes as a desirable part of everyday, normal life, and now spends large sums of money on expensive branding aimed at attracting young women to smoking.

The tobacco industry's message is clear. There is no need to tackle smoking because the millions of deaths are brought to you by a legal, normal industry selling a legal normal product. The industry devotes millions of pounds to trying to influence government policy around the world and prevent health from overruling the interests of profit. The ASH publication The Smoke Filled Room highlights how big tobacco tries to influence policy in the UK.

Tobacco also claims to be the only industry whose marketing tactics do not attract new customers.

Most smokers start in childhood and are addicted before they reach 16, sowing the seeds of fatal conditions and diseases before capable of making an adult choice.

Cick here for The Lancet's position on the tobacco industry http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(11)60181-5/fulltext

Click to read ASH briefings on tackling industy promotion http://www.ash.org.uk/information/facts-and-stats/ash-briefings

 

Secondhand smoke harms those you love.

Secondhand, or "passive" smoking is a killer and a cause of serious and fatal illness. Tobacco smoke contains over 4000 chemicals in the form of particles and gases. (Respiratory health effects of passive smoking. EPA/600/6-90/006F United States Environmental Protection Agency, 1992)

The unfiltered smoke from the tip of the cigarette is also known as "sidestream smoke" which contains many potentially toxic gases in higher concentrations. Nearly 85% of the smoke in a room results from this type of smoke (Fielding, JE and Phenow, KL, New England Journal of Medicine 1988, 1452-60)

Children are especially vulnerable to becoming ill from secondhand smoke because their lungs and respiratory organs are still developing.

The Royal College of Physicians 2010 report Passive Smoking and Children revealed that secondhand smokeg results in children needing 300,000 GP appointments and 10,000 hospital visits a year.

Localised figures for the North East show 84,000 North East children are exposed to second hand smoke in the home, which every year results in:

• 800 new chest infections for under twos
• 4,900 new middle ear infections for 0-16yr-olds
• 900 new cases of wheeze & asthma for 0-16yr-olds
• 24 new cases of bacterial meningitis
• 12,600 children needing to visit the GP
• 400 children needing to go to hospital

Secondhand smoke is also harmful to adults, raising the risks of lung cancer, coronary heart disease and strokes. For detailed information on the harm of secondhand smoke, click on the ASH essential information on second hand smoke.

Tobacco harms the environment

Smoking takes a heavy toll on the environment - from the farming of tobacco plants to the disposal of cigarette ends and packet.

Tobacco plants are prone to many diseases and so farmers use large amounts of fertiliser, herbicide and pesticides. These pollutants find their ways into streams and rivers, drinking water and animal food chains.

Machines used to make cigarettes use up to four miles of paper an hour to roll and package cigarettes. That's before thrown away cigarette butts are washed into rivers, lakes and the ocean where they are eaten by birds, animals and fish.

In the developing world, trees are often cut down to make room for tobacco crops. Around 600 million trees are cut down every year to produce tobacco products.

It affects farmers too - including many children in developing countries.  Tobacco farmers are prone to "green tobacco sickness" which causes nausea, weakness, dizziness and abdominal cramps, as well as poisoning from the pesticides. 

For more information, click on the ASH factsheet on tobacco and the environment or the Tobacco Atlas which highlights the impact of growing tobacco nation by nation.
 

Smoking and mental health

There is a strong association between smoking and mental health problems - not just in the stress and anxiety smokers experience when they can't have a cigarette.

The highest levels of smoking occur among inpatients in mental health units where up to 70%  of people smoke, often heavily. People with mental health problems are therefore at even greater risk of smoking-related harm than the general population.

Although nicotine stimulates the brain to release dopamine, which is associated with pleasurable feelings, smokers quickly develop regular smoking patterns. Eventually, smokers need increasing levels of nicotine to feel `normal'.  As the nicotine content in their blood drops below a certain level, they begin to crave a cigarette

Smoking also increases the risk of developing a mental health problem and is associated with an increased prevalence of all mental health illnesses and higher suicide rates. Some researchers believe that smoking could act as a trigger for mental ill-health.

Click here to read more about the links between smoking and mental health

Smoking during pregnancy

Despite large reductions in the number of people smoking in the North East, the region still has 22% of pregnant women smoking at the time of delivery compared to the national average of 14%.

If the North East got down to the national average, it would save 133 tiny lives a year from a reduction in miscarriages and stillbirths.

 There is no safe level of smoking in pregnancy. It restricts the vital oxygen that a baby needs for healthy growth and development. Many women wrongly believe that giving birth to a lighter baby will mean an easier birth, but in fact a low birth weight baby makes it more likely they will suffer complications in labour and may even have a stillborn baby

Because cigarettes restrict a baby's oxygen supply, their heart has to beat harder every time a smoker has a cigarette. The risk of cot death is trebled in infants whose mothers smoke both during and after pregnancy

On average, smokers have more complications of pregnancy and labour. A report by the Royal College of Physicians found maternal smoking and exposure to the unborn child causes up to 5000 miscarriages, 300 perinatal deaths and 2,200 premature births a year.

Broken down for the North East that is 360 miscarriages, 22 perinatal deaths and 160 premature births.

Studies also suggest that smoking during pregancy also significantly increases the risk of having a child with behavioural problems,such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and aggression.

Read our Mothers Day press release urging mums to quit or for more details click on The impact of smoking on sexual, reproductive and child health, a report by the Board of Science and Education and Tobacco Control Resource Centre.

Smoking costs us billions

Smoking is a killer that every individual  pays for, whether you smoke or not.  There is a high price to be paid by individuals, families, communities, the National Health Service and society at large. Helping people not to smoke, or to stop, improves lives and saves money.

The cost of smoking to the UK is estimated to be between £13.7 billion and £16.2 billion a year in the Cough Up report by the Policy Exchange think tank. This is between £3.7 billion and £6.2 billion more than taxation of tobacco contributes to HM Treasury annually.

In the North East this breaks down to £210million pounds every year on.

• £53million spent on over 27,000 smoking-related hospital admissions each year
• Over £17.9million in outpatient appointments annually
• Over £19.5million spent on GP consultations annually
• Over £12.6million in prescription costs annually
• Nearly £1.9million in nurse consultations annually#
• £70 mi
• £35.9m on the effects of passive smoking, with by far the biggest burden falling on children exposed to the dangers of smoke
• £70 million a year borne by employers and companies, through illness and absenteeism due to smoking and smoking breaks
 

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health reported on the cost effectiveness of interventions to reduce smoking over the past decade, concluding that it has resulted in 2 million fewer smokers and an annual return in investment of nearly ten times their cost.

 

Smoking is a childhood addiction

Smoking is a childhood addiction. A survey in the North East shows that the average age for starting is just 15. It is estimated that every year, around 340,000 children under 16 in England try their first cigarette.

However, fewer children are smoking than ever before. In  2009, 71% of pupils aged 11-15 across the UK said they had never tried smoking. NHS Information Centre, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England, 2009)

While it's worrying that 35% of boys and 49% of girls in the North East have tried smoking, the fact that only 6% of boys and 14% of girls are regular smokers shows smoking is less desirable for children than ever before. (NHS Information Centre, Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England, findings by region 2006-2008)

87% of smokers in the North East say the region needs to make more effort to stop children from starting in the first place. Young people are most at risk of becoming smokers if their family and friends smoke and they have access to cigarettes.

Children become aware of cigarettes at an early age. Three out of four children are aware of cigarettes before they reach the age of five whether or not the parents smoke (Teenage Smoking attitudes in 1996. Office for National Statistics, 1997)

Fewer people are buying illegal tobacco

A massive survey of over 4,111 people across the North of England including the North East, first carried out in 2009 and repeated in 2011, has found that fewer people are buying illegal tobacco and those buying it are buying less.

Despite tab houses often being blamed for illegal tobacco sales, over half of smokers (51%) admitted they had been offered illegal tobacco in a pub or club – the most likely place to be approached.

And the volume share of illicit tobacco sold by shops has increased from 6% up to 13% - suggesting a dishonest minority of traders are selling it to make a fast buck.

It also found:

• The volume of illegal tobacco bought has gone down by 39% in the North East. This is estimated at over £36m less avoided in duty and VAT evasion.
• The number of smokers buying illegal tobacco has fallen by 10%, down two percentage points from 20% to 18%
• The number of 16-34 year olds buying illegal tobacco has reduced by 5-6%, although 23% of 16-24 year old smokers say they still buy

 

The North East has seen the biggest drop in smoking nationwide

The North East saw the biggest regional drop in smoking nationwide between 2005-2009, when smoking dropped from 29% to 22%. These figures are from the General Lifestyle Survey.

  

North East Smoking Prevalence	2005	2009	% fall in prevalence	Reduction in number of smokers
All Adults	29%	22%	Down 7%	148,400
Males	28%	20%	Down 8%	77,200
Females	30%	23%	Down7%	71,200
Pregnant women	24%	2011- Q1: 20.5%	Down 3.5%
11-15 year olds (Smoking, Drinking, Drugs Survey- ONS)	14%	10%	Down 4%	5,900

In the North East more women that men smoke - 23% of women compared to 20% of men. However, this compares with 42% of men and 36% of women in 1980 which highlights how smoking rates have declined.

The overall decrease in smoking prevalence seems to be mainly due to the increase in people who have never smoked or only occasionally smoked. The proportion of adults who have never smoked or only occasionally smoked has been rising steadily, from 43% in 1982 to 53% in 2008.

In 2008, those aged 20-24 and 25-34 reported the highest prevalence of cigarette smoking (32% and 27% respectively), while those aged 60 and over reported the lowest prevalence.

Deaths from smoking

About half of all long term smokers will eventually be killed by their addiction - and one in two of these deaths will be in middle age.

The most recent estimates show that around 82,580 people in England were killed by smoking in 2008, accounting for one fifth of all UK deaths. This is more than three times more than the number of deaths from obesity and five times the number of deaths from road accidents, overdoses, murder, suicide and HIV all put together.

 Nearly one in five of all deaths among adults over 35 are as a result of smoking , causing around 4,211 deaths in the North East each year according to latest NHS estimates. Smoking causes almost 90 per cent of deaths from lung cancer, around 80 per cent of deaths from COPD and around 17 per cent of deaths from heart disease.

That breaks down every year in the North East to:

• 538 deaths from COPD
• 593 deaths from heart disease
• 848 deaths from lung cancer
• 183 deaths from stroke
• 2056 deaths from other diseases such respiratory disease and cancers of the oesophagus, kidney, throat, bladder and stomach.
 

For every death caused by smoking, approximately 20 smokers are suffering from a smoking related disease.

For more information, click on the ASH Essential Information on Smoking and Disease, and to see a history of smoking related deaths and quitting in the 20th century, click on the website of the CTSU medical research facility at Oxford University for evidence of the hazards of smoking and benefits of quitting.