Smoking is rapidly dying out in the UK and US among young people – the first generation to come of age surrounded by laws that discourage smoking.
Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics reveal that the proportion of smokers in the country fell to 15.5 per cent in 2016, down 4 percentage points from 2010. Although 19.3 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds smoke, this group has shown the biggest decline, by 6.5 percentage points.
And the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that the number of smokers aged between about 12 and 18 dropped to 3.9 million in 2016, down from 4.7 million in 2015. These figures include cigarettes and e-cigarettes, both of which have seen large declines in use.
“Young people are growing up in a different world to the older generation,” says Hazel Cheeseman of UK charity Action on Smoking and Health. “The notion that smoking is the norm is much less true than before.”
