ANU researchers have found the majority of smoking stereotypes don't actually match the profile of Australia's smokers. In a first-of-its-kind study, 73 per cent of the 2.5 million people who smoke daily have good mental health and 69 per cent of them have completed year 12.
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TVTranscript
00:00 So we know that smoking is over-represented in people who have serious mental health issues,
00:07 people who are unemployed, people who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander.
00:11 But what these results talk about is what does that look like in terms of the whole
00:15 population of smokers?
00:17 And actually people who smoke, 92% of them are not Indigenous and most are in good mental
00:23 health, most are employed.
00:24 So it's that balancing act of saying, yes, this is a whole of community problem, but
00:29 there are certain groups who need extra support and need greater resources to help to get
00:35 smokers to quit.
00:36 Okay, and Emily, are we talking about vapes as well as cigarette smoking here?
00:41 No, this is current daily tobacco smoking, so conventional cigarettes largely.
00:47 All right, so why is it important to find out who the daily smokers are?
00:54 Well I think because previous research has really been comparing characteristics of smokers
00:59 and non-smokers and said, well, more are unemployed, more have mental health problems.
01:03 There's a tendency to imagine all smokers or most smokers have mental health problems
01:08 or are unemployed.
01:09 And it's important that we understand that true profile of our community and of the people
01:15 who smoke in order to properly target measures to decrease smoking, but also to really understand
01:22 about how not to stigmatise people and to really see this as a community problem that's
01:27 been generated essentially by the tobacco industry.
01:30 So how can the anti-smoking campaigns then be better targeted, better focused?
01:37 Well people who smoke really need to see themselves in the measures to reduce smoking and to encourage
01:43 quitting.
01:44 So these are data, really raw data for our policy makers, for our program designers and
01:50 for the community to think about how are we going to address this problem.
01:53 So essentially it tells us that we need those population-wide measures like price, like
01:58 bans on advertising, like smoke-free spaces, but we also need to have those targeted supports
02:03 for people to quit, like the Tackling Indigenous Smoking programs, as well as their population
02:09 measures.
02:10 So it's really evidence to get that balance right and it's a world first in that this
02:14 is the first time that we've done a profile of smokers in any country.
02:19 Before that we were really talking about those comparative statistics.
02:22 So it's really information to get that balance right.
02:26 And do you know if most smokers want to give up, Emily?
02:31 We know that smoking is still our number one cause of premature disease and death and that
02:37 almost universally people who smoke, which they had never started and would like to quit.
02:42 So there's a huge amount of motivation.
02:44 But unfortunately nicotine is one of the most addictive, if not the most addictive substances
02:49 out there.
02:50 It's often ranked ahead of cocaine and heroin in terms of addictiveness.
02:54 So the tobacco industry gets people addicted while they're children and adolescents and
02:58 that sets up a risk of lifetime addiction.
03:01 So we also have to be clear that we are not blaming smokers for smoking.
03:04 It's not so much about personal choice, but about really it being a very difficult habit
03:08 to kick.
03:10 And there is a perception though, isn't there, that smoking as a health issue has been dealt
03:13 with because the number of smokers is going down.
03:16 That's not the case.
03:19 We know that we're now down to 10 or 11% current daily smoking, but it's such a lethal habit
03:25 that that is still enough for it to be our number one cause of premature death and disability.
03:31 So it's definitely not solved.
03:33 And it's really something that we need to make sure we prioritise, really welcome the
03:37 new legislation that's gone through and the government's commitment to actually really
03:41 going hard on tobacco.
03:43 Australia is recognised as a world leader in tobacco control.
03:46 We've now got 26 countries doing plain packaging, which we pioneered, and many others are set
03:52 to join them.
03:53 But we still have this major problem.
03:55 And I think part of why that is, is that the tobacco industry has been very successful
04:00 in saying nothing to see here, this is personal choice.
04:04 And also when smokers feel stigmatised, they're more likely to hide it.
04:08 So this is really about saying this is not gone away.
04:11 It's a whole of community issue.
04:13 And we need to make sure that whatever we do, we're informed by the evidence so that
04:18 people who smoke can really see themselves in all the materials that we put out to help
04:23 support them to quit.
04:24 [BLANK_AUDIO]