TOBACCO-RELATED LUNG cancer now kills more women in Ireland than breast cancer. It is a dreadful development. And it hasn’t happened by chance. Tobacco companies targeted women at a time when men began to respond to public health campaigns by giving up cigarettes.
They set out to make smoking fashionable for young women and companies produced superslim and less pungent cigarettes. As a consequence, the number of women dying from lung cancer has been rising by about 3 per cent a year.
Because of the time-lag involved between taking up smoking and developing lung cancer, health agencies have found it difficult to persuade young people of the need to quit and of the dangers involved. Many young people act as if they are immortal. And studies suggest that four-out-of-five nicotine users become addicted between the ages of 14 and 18.
Now, the Irish Cancer Society has launched a campaign entitled “the beauty of quitting”, emphasising the effect prolonged smoking has on women’s good looks, in terms of wrinkles, yellowish skin and discoloured teeth.
A ban on smoking in the workplace, introduced in 2004, cut tobacco consumption. The effect was short-lived, however, and as more young people became addicted the figures began to rise. The recruitment of young women, particularly in the lower-income bracket, has brought their present participation level to 40 per cent, compared to 29 per cent for the general population.
At that level, it is almost double the European average. Lung cancer is now the largest cancer killer of both men and women and 20 per cent of all deaths are tobacco-related.
The Irish Heart Foundation wants the Government to tackle the rising death rate by increasing the cost of a packet of 20 cigarettes by €1, bringing the price to above €10. Cigarette consumption is price sensitive, particularly where young people are concerned. But the scale of cigarette smuggling has become so great that the effect of previous tax increases has been undermined.
One-quarter of all cigarettes sold here may be smuggled. While that situation persists, additional taxes would have limited effect. Cutting lung cancer deaths will require a variety of official strategies, including tax increases and severe smuggling penalties. But a personal desire to end the habit is also needed.