Despite Ireland being hailed for enacting the world’s first indoor smoking ban, 20 years on, young adults have a far higher smoking rate than any other age group.
The research carried out with nearly 5,000 20-year-olds, found 19pc reported a mental ill-health diagnosis, mainly depression or anxiety. This group was 57pc more likely to smoke and 40pc more likely to vape than their peers without a diagnosis.
Professor Luke Clancy, director general of the Tobacco Free Research Institute, said: “We know young adults are higher smokers but we did not know it was so much higher for people with mental health than in the non-mental health population, and this applies both to cigarette and e-cigarette use.”
The consultant respiratory physician, one of the co-authors of the study, said the reasons behind the high smoking rate of young adults are complex.
“We’ve done another paper which shows that being in paid employment is associated with a big increase in smoking.
“That’s partially because you have the money to smoke, but there is also a socio-economic link, because it tends to be poorer people who start working younger.”
He said the figures showed “most people who use e-cigarettes also smoke cigarettes”.
“We also know if you use e-cigarettes as a child, you’re more likely to smoke.”
The younger you start, the more likely you are to continue to smoke
The research, Inequalities in Smoking and E-Cigarette Use in Young Adults With Mental Ill-Health, 20 Years After Ireland’s Smoking Ban, was led by Professor Joan Hanafin along with Professor Clancy and Salome Sunday.
It states: “Despite extensive tobacco control interventions in the past 20 years, there is still need in Ireland for new targeted interventions to reduce health inequalities for left-behind young smokers with mental ill-health.”
Risk factors for smoking and e-cigarette use were: earlier smoking initiation; peers or primary caregivers who smoked; being in paid employment; one-parent family background; and social media use.
Data from 4,729 young adults, gathered by the Growing Up in Ireland National Longitudinal Study of Children in 2019, was examined in the study published in the Tobacco Use Insights journal.
Respondents were asked if they had ever been diagnosed with depression or anxiety or another psychological or psychiatric illness or disorder by a doctor, psychologist, or psychiatrist.
It found females were less likely to smoke or vape than their male counterparts.
Social media use is a risk factor for smoking or vaping. Photo: posed by Getty
Prof Clancy says those with mental ill-health are less successful at stopping their habit. “But worse than that, the services for them are inadequate. They need special care. If people don’t know they exist and don’t know the relationships and associations, then they won’t provide them with the proper services.
“How do you prevent it? You know, for instance, that the younger you start, the more likely you are to continue to smoke… So if people are at risk for mental health, then there should be extra effort to prevent them from smoking.”
He said Ireland has lagged behind other countries when it comes to tackling e-cigarette use, with a really high rate of vaping compared to smoking in 15- and 16-year-olds.
Teachers are telling me that [students] are going out of class to use e-cigarettes
“One of the big reasons for that is that the Government didn’t bring in any restriction on age until December 2023.
“Now they’re banning them up to 21 (years) and they’re also going to restrict them in other ways, so they’re getting their act together.
“It will have an effect. The plans are good. I’ve been asking for them since 2014. It’s 10 years wasted in my books.”
He said the message that e-cigarettes are positive in helping people to give up smoking is certainly not the case “for 80pc of children who never smoked in their life, who are using them”.
“Parents are telling me that their teenage children are getting up at night to use e-cigarettes, and teachers are telling me that [students] are going out of class to use e-cigarettes, so it is disrupting them, and we know that e-cigarettes are bad for children.
“For young people, they should have no reason to take them and they cause damage to their brain, their lungs and their heart.”
Prof Clancy also warned that nicotine alters brain development forever in children.
“The effect in kids is dramatic, and they’re not as attuned, and they have more learning problems, and they have more sleep problems, and they are more likely to smoke.”
He also referenced the case of a 12-year-old girl from Northern Ireland who suffered a lung collapse and spent four days in an induced coma after starting to vape when she was nine.
The consultant said measures shown to work to prevent e-cigarette use are age restrictions, price, and the banning of flavours.
In relation to plans to draft laws to ban disposable vapes and limit vape flavours, he says: “I welcome all the proposed measures, but they’ve got to come in.”
The study found 47pc of those with mental health problems smoked tobacco compared to 36pc of their peers; 17pc of those with a mental health condition used e-cigarettes or vapes compared to 13pc of their peers; and 12pc of the young adults with a psychiatric diagnosis smoked and vaped compared to 9pc without a diagnosis.
