Ireland Urgently Needs Program to Help Youth Quit E-Cigarettes

According to The Sun's report on August 25th, a charity organization in Ireland has stated that there is an urgent need for a service to help young people quit e-cigarettes in order to save thousands of teenagers from a lifetime of nicotine addiction.

The Irish Heart Foundation has pointed out that Ireland is facing a "teenage e-cigarette epidemic" and special support is needed to help young people kick the addictive substance.

In its budget report submitted, the foundation also called for an increase in cigarette prices to 20 euros per pack, and for e-cigarettes to be taxed sufficiently to prevent their use by young people.

Chris Macey, Advocacy Manager of the Irish Heart Foundation, stated that

We know that many young people are seeking help to quit e-cigarettes, and American programs have shown that when this help is available, the results are very significant.

When facing the epidemic of teenage e-cigarette use, failing to provide this support is equivalent to abandoning thousands of teenagers at risk of long-term addiction.

Messi stated that the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Ireland continues to receive requests from various quit smoking services around the country for help in quitting e-cigarettes. Despite the increasing demand, he added that Quit.ie does not have enough resources to provide this service because quitting e-cigarettes requires a different approach than traditional smoking cessation services to be most effective.

The Irish Heart Foundation also pointed out that according to the data from the youth information and support platform Spunout, their webpages on the health impacts of smoking and e-cigarettes have received thousands of views, with searches for "how to quit e-cigarettes" being the biggest source of traffic for this content.

The foundation is also calling for a budget allocation of over 1 million euros for the development of an e-cigarette prevention and control information campaign and a research project to create an e-cigarette cessation plan. The foundation hopes to increase cigarette prices by 3.25 euros to reach a price of 20 euros per pack.

Messi also stated that the government should provide more support for smokers to quit smoking. At the same time, they pay an additional tax of 1 billion euros each year, while the budget for anti-smoking measures is only 17 million euros per year.