With changing trends and new influencers taking over social media, it appears that there is a newfound influence when it comes to kids and smoking.
From pop singers to TikTok personalities, more celebrities who get follows from teens and young adults appear to be lighting up, and that is a cause for concern from Grey Bruce Public Health.
Brooke Tomsett, youth advisor at Grey Bruce Public Health says that it’s a concern after decades of public health efforts to reduce smoking, but it’s also a sign of changing times.
“We do know that all of us are consuming media a lot differently than we used to, so we’re all spending a lot more time online. We may be exposed to influencers or people who might seem like everyday people, but also celebrities who are using products or showing products in their feeds or in videos, and it does have an impact on us,” said Tomsett in an interview with Bayshore News. “So it is a concern for youth, as well as others that they might be influenced and causing a re-normalization of cigarette smoking, and we’ve seen it with vaping as well.”
Due to public health efforts to reduce smoking, she says that the incidence of cigarette smoking in has reduced from around 50% of Canadians in 1965, to around 12% today.
Tomsett credits government interventions, particularly with advertising, with reducing the number of smokers.”There are advertising laws that have worked, to support that. You weren’t allowed to show smoking in television commercials, in magazines, and [tobacco companies] weren’t allowed to sponsor sporting events. So really, this new media has really skirted around those laws, and we need to catch up with that, and
For years, there have been warnings given that smoking can cause lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and emphysema, as well as being linked to bladder cancer, impotence, and oral cancers.
Cigarette manufacturers have also been pressured throughout the years to add warnings to their products. In the 1990s, text warnings were added to cigarette packs. After that, pictures were added, and then those pictures got more graphic to discourage cigarette smoking. Canada became the first country to print health warnings in individual cigarettes, such as “Poison in every puff” and “Tobacco smoke harms children.”
While those efforts have been apparently effective, some young people may have never seen the warnings. Says Tomsett, “We might have a group of young people who haven’t been as exposed to the messaging around commercial tobacco smoke, so we might need to return to that. But we don’t see an increase yet in smoking for young people. What we are concerned about is vaping.”
Vaping is often considered to be a “healthy alternative” to smoking, because there’s no smoke involved. Instead, vaping devices heat up a nicotine-based fluid (sometimes referred to as vape juice) to make the user able to inhale those vapours and absorb the nicotine through the lungs.
Tomsett says that regardless if someone is a vape user or a cigarette smoker, there are resources available to help quit.
Grey Bruce Public Health is part of anti-smoking initiatives, including Stop On The Net, which helps people to want to quit smoking receive nicotine replacement patches for up to 10 weeks. There is also information available to prevent or stop vaping through Not An Experiment, which offers information to parents, teachers, and youth.
“We really use a lot of the messaging to kind of relay this that a lot of the tactics used to make vaping seem normal were used by the tobacco industry.”
Local secondary school students also have access to public health nurses who can help them quit. They can get in touch with GBPH’s school health by phone, text, and email.
“There are a number of programs in our area and across the province, and we know that everyone’s quitting journey would be different, it can be harder for some people. But we know that accessing nicotine replacement products improves the chances of quitting and staying [that way].”