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A billion fewer cigarettes smoked each year in England

Around 1.4 billion fewer cigarettes are being smoked in England every year, according to new research published in JAMA Network Open.

The study, carried out by University College London and Public Health England, suggests that stricter tobacco laws and a focus on quitting smoking are working.

The researchers looked at cigarette sales data for England from August 2011 through February 2018 and compared this with monthly self-reported cigarette use of over 135,000 individuals from the Smoking Toolkit Study.

Over the study period, the average number of cigarettes smoked monthly declined by 24.4 per cent based on survey data and 24.1 per cent based on sales data, equating to a drop from 3.40 billion a month to 2.57 billion and from 3.41 billion a month to 2.57 billion, respectively. This equates to 118.4 million and 117.4 million fewer cigarettes consumed per month, respectively, or approximately 1.4 billion per year.

The decline in national cigarette consumption exceeded the decline in smoking prevalence, which was approximately 15 per cent over the same period.

The findings suggest stricter regulations may be having a positive impact. The study period saw the introduction of plain standardised packaging (2017) and a ban on cigarette displays (2012).


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