Photo: 123RF
Health researchers who have completed a deep dive into data from the long-running Year 10s smoking study say the e-cigarette companies are wrong: vaping is not displacing smoking among young people.
The researchers, from the University of Auckland, as well as Australia's Cancer Council New South Wales and the University of Sydney's Daffodil Centre, looked at vaping and smoking trends among New Zealand adolescents.
The study, which was published on Friday in The Lancet, analysed 25 years of data, from 1999 to 2023. It examines the potential impact of vaping on smoking trends among nearly 700,000 students aged 14 to 15 years old (Year 10).
University of Auckland research fellow Dr Lucy Hardie said youth smoking rates in New Zealand were declining steeply before vapes came on the scene in 2010, but that progress has slowed.
University of Auckland research fellow Dr Lucy Hardie. Photo: Supplied
The research team had expected to see the decline in smoking accelerate, after vapes were introduced, she added.
"But what we found instead, was that actually the rates of decline slowed, rather than speed up. For us, this means that potentially, young people are experimenting more, rather than less, with the advent of vaping.
"That might be down to things like vaping being more socially acceptable, in this younger age group, and so it may not be such a leap to then start experimenting with cigarettes as well."
In 2023, approximately 12.6 percent of 14 to 15-year-old students in New Zealand had ever smoked, nearly double the 6.6 percent predicted in the pre-vaping era.
Similarly, in 2023, around 3 percent of Year 10 students were smoking regularly, but this rate would have been just 1.8 percent had it followed its pre-vaping trend.
The research contradicts an earlier and oft-quoted study from 2020 that suggested vaping might be displacing smoking among New Zealand youth.
The new study uses the same data but drew on a much wider time period, Hardie said.
The researchers found that vaping may have actually slowed New Zealand's progress in preventing adolescent smoking.
Meanwhile the new research also shows the prevalence of daily vaping in New Zealand increased from 1.1 percent in 2015 to 10 percent in 2023 marking a staggering nine-fold increase over eight years."
This study highlighted the need for a stronger response to youth vaping, and that policy makers should not rely on vapes and alternative nicotine products to reduce smoking, she added. "New Zealand's policy settings are too lenient. Vapes are addictive, appealing and easily accessible to young people.
"The high rates of use indicate vaping is normalised within New Zealand youth culture, which may influence experimentation with other nicotine products, such as smoking."
"Unfortunately, the most effective policies to reduce smoking, such as the smoke-free generation, were repealed in 2023."
The study also showed that vaping was not the silver bullet to reduce smoking that was hoped, she added. "In fact, vaping may have hindered progress among young people."
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