• Spain The Non-smoking platform sees "alarming" the viral video of a girl vaping in her communion and urges to ban the sale of vapers

19.2% of adolescents aged 14 to 18 smoke or consume some derivative of tobacco, but vapers are preferred by one in five, followed by hookahs, which use 14.3%, while 13.1% opt for conventional cigarettes.

These are some of the data from the XXIV survey conducted by the Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine (semFYC) on the occasion of the Smoke-Free Week held from May 25 to 31, and which this year has as its motto "Better the walk than smoke or vaping".

The study, which has broken participation record with a total of 9,711 people from all the autonomous communities, shows how new tobacco products are "the gateway" to conventional cigarettes for the youngest, lamented Susana Morena, coordinator of the Smoke-Free Week.

Thus, 19.2% of kids between 14 and 18 years old declare themselves smokers or vapers, and electronic cigarettes are precisely the favorites, since they are consumed by up to 20.8% of adolescents.

Meanwhile, 14.3% consume hookah, 13.1% opt for conventional cigarettes and 7.5% consume tobacco mixed with cannabis (joint).

The figures are reversed in the following age group: young people aged 19 to 24 who smoke amounts to 32.3%, but in this range, the most consumed product is conventional cigarettes (19.1%), followed by vapers (13.8%) and hookahs (11.5%). The proportion of users of tobacco mixed with cannabis remains at 6.7%.

All of which shows, in the words of Morena, that "the electronic cigarette is the way in which young people start to move later to conventional tobacco."

And why do they start? "Because of the false sense of innocuousness of these devices that has been massively disseminated in marketing campaigns with commercial interests aimed at young people," the doctor has censored.

In fact, only 62% of respondents know that hookah or hookah is harmful to their health, whether used with tobacco or nicotine-free products; On the contrary, 29.7% ignore its harmful effects, a percentage that rises to 40% among smokers.

All this despite the fact that there is already scientific evidence about its ravages for the respiratory tract despite the short time they have been on the market, and the "that will be coming out in the coming years".

An example of all this is the recent video that has gone viral of a minor who is given several vapers for her communion; It is not that they are already aimed at adolescents, it is that little by little advertising is permeating the little ones, with attractive devices "in the form of sweets" that are sold on the Internet with which "something that had been denormalized is being normalized" with anti-smoking regulations.

For all these reasons, the semFYC has urged the authorities to undertake legislative initiatives on these devices and information campaigns, to be able to be directed to the school and youth environment.

"It is very serious that, in the middle of 2023, 30% of young people aged 19 to 34 consider themselves smokers: we have to review the message we are giving and why our youth continues to get hooked on tobacco and its derivatives," concluded Paula Chao, vice president of the scientific society.

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