Rise in young women vaping daily in the UK

Young women vaping has tripled in the last year according to new figures

More young women in the UK are vaping daily, a survey from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) suggests.

The proportion of women aged 16 to 24 who said they were doing it increased from 1.9% in 2021 to 6.7% in 2022, representing an estimated rise from around 62,000 to 225,000 across the UK.

Use was high across this age group as a whole - more than one in 10 said they were daily or occasional users in 2022.

The number of people smoking cigarettes continues to fall.

Vaping and smoking is illegal for under-18s, with children's doctors calling for a complete ban on popular, brightly-coloured, flavoured disposable vapes in particular.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently said it was "ridiculous" that vapes were designed and promoted to appeal to children when they were supposed to be used by adults giving up smoking.

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There is concern over how much damage they can do to developing lungs, while they are also bad for the environment due to being non-recyclable.

Deborah Arnott, chief executive of charity Action on Smoking and Health (ASH), said the data shows "a worrying growth in vaping among teens and young adults".

She added: "The Government's response to the consultation on youth vaping due imminently must contain concrete measures to prohibit child-friendly branding, and put products out of sight and out of reach in shops, as well as much stricter regulation, including a tax on the pocket money-priced disposable vapes most popular with children."

Fewer smokers

The ONS used data from its Opinions and Lifestyle Survey, a poll of 16,300 people over the age of 16 in Britain, as well as numbers from an Annual Population Survey that involves 320,000 adults.

The proportion of people using vapes was highest among current cigarette smokers (27.1%) and former smokers (16.5%).

About 2.4% of people who had never smoked cigarettes said they used vapes every day or on occasion, up from 1.5% in the last year. Occasional use in those who had never smoked jumped from 0.8% to 1.8%.

Out of the UK population, 12.9% of people aged 18 or over, or 6.4 million people, smoked cigarettes in 2022.

The ONS estimates this is the lowest proportion of current smokers since records began in 2011.

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Broken down into countries, England had the lowest proportion of current smokers (12.7%) followed by Scotland (13.9%), Northern Ireland (14%) and Wales (14.1%).

In 2019 the government said it wanted to reduce the number of adults smoking in England to less than 5% by 2030.

James Tucker, data and analysis lead for the social care and health division at the ONS, said the figure is "consistent with the continuing trend towards a decline in smoking prevalence over recent years".