New Tobacco Strategy aims to halve smokers in ten years

Subject: Health and safety

THE CIEH has given its full support for the Government’s new Tobacco Control Strategy which was launched today.

CIEH Chief Executive Graham Jukes says:

“This vision for a Smokefree future builds on the 1998 strategy ‘Smoking Kills’. We will continue to support environmental health practitioners so that they can deliver on the important role they play in this new national strategy for England.”

The new tobacco control strategy aims to cut the number of adult smokers from a fifth (21 percent) of the population to one in 10 in the next ten years and to reduce smoking among 11 to 15 year-olds from six to under one percent by 2020.

The Government has already achieved a great deal in recent years by making public places smokefree, establishing the stop smoking services, and more recently passing legislation that will end the display of tobacco at the point of sale and prohibit the sale of tobacco from vending machines.

Over the past decade, smoking rates among adults have fallen from 28 to 21 percent while smoking among 11 to 15 year olds has declined from 11 to 6 percent. [1] There are now 2.4 million fewer smokers than ten years ago and this has reduced the cost to the NHS of smoking by nearly £400 million pounds a year. [2]

However there is much more that needs to be done to protect children from being lured into a lifetime’s addiction to nicotine and to help existing smokers quit.

The CIEH believes that the measures contained in the new tobacco control strategy will have broad appeal and should be implemented which ever political party wins the next General Election.

Key measures contained in the strategy include:

• Reducing exposure to children from secondhand smoke through targeted campaigns highlighting the benefits of smokefree homes and cars and a review of smokefree legislation in 2010;
• Further strengthening the NHS Stop Smoking Services, and providing new routes to quitting for smokers unable to stop abruptly, in collaboration with the MHRA;
• Increased investment to further drive down tobacco smuggling;
• Sustaining high levels of spending on marketing campaigns to encourage smokers to quit;
• Implementation of the retail display ban and ban on sale of tobacco from vending machines in the Health Act 2009;

CIEH Principal Policy Officer Ian Gray said:

“The CIEH has campaigned for measures to control smoking for nearly a quarter of a century.

“We could now be looking at an end game for tobacco. Where non-smoking is the norm, where children are protected from tobacco advertising and promotion to prevent them from starting to smoke, and where established smokefree environments controls exposure to second-hand smoke.

“All of this, together with our evidence-based stop smoking services and other forms of support for smokers to help them quit, could mean that we can deliver a Smokefree future – a worthwhile goal.”

Notes to editors

• [1] Smoking and drinking among adults, 2007. General Household Survey, ONS, 2008. Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2008. The Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2009
• [2] Callum C. The cost of smoking to the NHS. Action on Smoking and Health, 2008
• The Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH) is the professional voice for environmental health. It ensures the highest standards of professional competence in its members, in the belief that through environmental health action people's health can be improved
• The CIEH represents over 10,000 members working in the public, private and non-profit sectors. For more information about the CIEH visit www.cieh.org
• For further information please contact James Davis on 0207 827 6303 or email j.davis@cieh.org