Health Ireland Survey 2017

Health Ireland Survey 2017 (here)

Published by the Department of Health in October 2017

• Almost half of all Irish people who have smoked in the past year have made an attempt to quit (Healthy Ireland Survey 2017). There is currently no access to information about using vaping products as a tool to quit smoking on Quit.ie or Department of Health websites. Smokers need to have all of the information on alternatives to smoking available to them, and information on vaping should be published by the Department of Health and the HSE on Quit.ie.
• Just 1% of never smokers have used vaping products, meaning 99% of users of vaping products are ex-smokers which banishes the myth that these consumer electronic products are a gateway to smoking.
• Only 7% of current smokers also use e-cigarettes according to Healthy Ireland Survey 2017.
• If people are dual users, they are making use of vaping to reduce their use of cigarettes. Vaping products are 95% less harmful that tobacco cigarettes.
• According to Healthy Ireland Survey 2017, 37% of Irish people trying to quit smoking successfully used vaping products to do so, this is up from 32% in the previous year’s survey. Vaping products have the potential to see many more Irish smokers consider them as viable alternatives.
• 37% of Irish smokers who have quit smoking in the past year used e-cigarettes to do so, this makes up 4% of the total population – Healthy Ireland 2017
• There are between 100,000-150,000 vaping product users in Ireland, of which 99% are ex-smokers yet receive no public money from the HSE or the Department of Health