German Approach Failing
Latest figures from Germany show that the vilification of vaping has resulted in smoking rates increasing – including by a whopping 86% in teens
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by Dave Cross
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Latest figures from Germany show that the vilification of vaping has resulted in smoking rates increasing – including by a whopping 86% in teens. The data comes from the German DEBRA study, the equivalent to the English Smoking Toolkit Study and shows that the country that gave us the mighty Taifun atomiser tanks and stunning Dicodes mods needs to do some serious work on addressing tobacco harm reduction.
The project describes itself: “The German Study on Tobacco Use (Die Deutsche Befragung zum Rauchverhalten - DEBRA) is a bi-monthly representative, face-to-face household survey on the use of tobacco and alternative nicotine delivery systems (ANDS, such as e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products) in the German population.
“The study is coordinated by the Addiction Research and Clinical Epidemiology unit (Suchtforschung und klinische Epidemiologie) at the Institute of General Practice of the Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf.
“The study has been funded by the German Ministry of Health (2019 – current) and the Ministry for Innovation, Science and Research of the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia (2016 – 2019).”
German smoking rates in 2018
- 14–17-year-olds: 8%
- 18–24-year-olds: 36.9%
- 25+ year olds: 28.3%
German smoking rates in 2020
- 14–17-year-olds: risen to 10.5%
- 18–24-year-olds: fallen to 33.4%
- 25+ year olds: fallen to 26.5%
German smoking rates in 2023
- 14–17-year-olds: soared to 14.9%
- 18–24-year-olds: climbed up to 37.6%
- 25+ year olds: hit a shocking 34.4%
By any measure, this is an absolute failure of policy when it comes to addressing smoking and the serious harms to health resulting from tobacco use. All smoking rates across the age bands have increased to five-year highs, and the 86.25% rise in teen smoking rates is wholly unforgiveable.
The project has one single success listed for 2023: “Modernisation of the study website with dynamic graphics”.
Compared to the ridiculously high levels of smoking, the vaping rate graph paints a very sorry picture of missed opportunities.
Why is this?
As reported by 2Firsts last year, Federal Drug Commissioner Burkhard Blienert followed up his attack on heated products by stating, "flavours and flavourings increase the appeal of the products and mask the dangers of smoking," and linked this to vaping, calling for even tighter restrictions to be applied to the harm reduction product.
He spouted the tired attack that vapes are targeted at children “with high concentrations of nicotine”, despite the Tobacco Products Directive limiting juices to 20mg/ml across Europe. Blienert called for a ban on coloured packaging and the flavours that help adults quit smoking.
The World Vapers’ Alliance took an innovative approach to advocacy in response in September 2023, “to underline the importance of vaping flavours during the traditional ‘Vorwärts Sommerfest’ organised by SPD in Berlin. We brought in a cocktail mobile, offering both flavoured and unflavoured cocktails to the guests and speakers.
“Unsurprisingly, attendees chose the flavoured cocktail options, while the unflavoured variety was left largely untouched. Through this demonstration, we aimed to emphasise that flavours hold significance not just in vapes but in all aspects of our lives, including our drinks.”
Germany’s ignorant and illogical vilification of vaping has resulted in 54% of the population believing that vaping is as or more harmful than smoking tobacco cigarettes.
Maybe, instead of attacking the best chance Germany has of reducing smoking rates, the Federal Ministry of Health should put money into promoting vaping instead of continuing to make DEBRA’s website more “dynamic”?
Photo Credit:
Graphs from https://www.debra-study.info/
Dave Cross
Journalist at POTVDave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous start-ups to develop content for their websites.
