This year, WHO announced the theme of World No Tobacco Day - «Unraveling the Secret of Attraction - Fighting Nicotine and Tobacco Addiction», focusing on how the tobacco and nicotine industry continues to target children and adolescents, offering them increasingly attractive and deceptive products. After all, manufacturers of tobacco and nicotine products deliberately design their products in such a way as to lure the younger generation into the trap of manipulation and addiction. Bright packaging, sweeteners, flavors, cooling agents, etc. - all this creates the illusion of attractiveness in order to buy more and become addicted faster.
Results The Ukrainian part of the «European Student Survey on Alcohol and Other Drugs — ESPAD» 2024 shows an alarming trend. Despite the fact that among Ukrainian teenagers the rate of experience of using e-cigarettes «at least once in their life» decreased from 50.5% in 2019 to 38.1% in 2024, the rate of constant vaping consumption doubled. If in 2019 only 11.7% teenagers smoked e-cigarettes in the last 30 days, then in 2024 this rate increased to 23.9%. At the same time, teenagers who start with vaping are 3.5 times more likely to switch to traditional smoking.
In addition, nicotine pouches (pads) are rapidly gaining popularity among children and young people. They are presented as a «convenient» and «inconspicuous» alternative to cigarettes, but in reality they pose a serious danger. And this is the most dangerous thing, because the tobacco industry is again actively working on the younger generation. According to the Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS, WHO, 2023), in Ukraine, 31% of children aged 13–15 years are already using nicotine pouches, and another 71% have tried them at least once. For comparison: among adults, this figure is only 0.31%. These data confirm that nicotine pads are purposefully advertised to children due to their flavors, bright packaging, and the absence of legislative restrictions.
We emphasize once again: do not succumb to the manipulations of tobacco companies. All devices and methods of nicotine consumption are equally harmful.
There is no such thing as safe smoking!
According to materials Ministry of Health of Ukraine and Central Health Center of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine