The latest survey carried out by the public opinion company “Kantar” on the use of tobacco and nicotine containing products and the attitude towards smoke-free products it was concluded that every third inhabitant of Latvia regularly uses tobacco and nicotine-containing products. Cigarettes are still the most popular and most frequently used product- 90% of smokers start smoking directly with cigarettes. 75% of users of this product admit that they smoke every day or almost every day. In the category of smokeless products, the most common are electronic cigarettes –they are used by 26%, followed by heated tobacco -22%. Tobacco-free nicotine pouches are used by 6% of respondents.
The majority of users of tobacco and nicotine containing products (69%) agree that adult smokers should have access to an array of alternative smoke-free products, as well as an objective information on them. Meanwhile 48% of tobacco and nicotine containing product users agree that encouraging adult smokers to switch completely to alternative smoke-free products could be one way of reducing the harm caused to society by cigarette smoke.
During the study it was concluded that an important criterion among the users of smoke-free products is the least possible harm not only to the user, but also to the society. 38% of users of these products indicated that the main reason why they started using this group of products was to switch from cigarette smoking to a less harmful alternative.
Survey was carried out in the spring of 2021 in all the territory of Latvia. In overall there were in total 1774 respondents involved in survey in the age of 18 to 60 years.
