Italy lights up again: Smoking rises to highest level in almost two decades

There are almost 1 million new smokers since 2019

A 1970s couple at the Antico Caffe Greco, Rome (Alamy)

In Italy you would be hard-pressed to find a dinner table where at least half the diners didn’t light up after a meal, striking the quintessentially Italian pose of a cigarette in one hand and a digestif in the other.

From a morning espresso at the cafe to an early evening Campari spritz in piazza, the cigarette has proven a loyal companion for many generations of Italians.

It is still the epitome of cool, even in such enlightened times. Go on to YouTube and you can find videos dedicated to film scenes of legendary Italian star Sophia Loren smoking in various movies.

Football fans of a certain era talk fondly of how Italian managers such as Enzo Bearzot or Marcello Lippi would be smoking on the sidelines, dressed impeccably in most cases. Smoking and being Italian was cool, or at least it was until 2003.

That was when Italy became the first country in the European Union to pass a law backing a ban on indoor smoking in public places, which in turn led to an almost 9 per cent drop in consumption, according to a study by the Annals of Oncology journal.

The 2005 study also showed that support for the ban had grown after it came into force, with 83.3 percent of people in favour of a ban in 2001 versus 90 percent after it was implemented.

These were the early Noughties, and a growing number of Italians were gravitating towards a healthier lifestyle and becoming increasingly aware of the dangers associated with tobacco smoke. The ban had seemingly helped reduce Italy’s favourite vice.

Last year, there were international headlines when fashion capital Milan decided to ban smoking outdoors, the first Italian city to forbid smoking in places such as parks, bus stops and cemeteries.

“We’re fed-up with this smoke,” declared one exasperated shopkeeper in Milan, who supported the ban.

But after years of decline the Italian government’s Higher Health Institute (ISS) announced last week that smokers were back on the rise, with 800,000 new users since 2019.

A total of 12.4 million Italians – just over 24 per cent of the population – smoke in 2022, the highest percentage in Italy since 2006.

“The spike in smokers is concerning,” ISS president Silvio Brusaferro said in a statement. “It’s important to activate preventative actions, starting from the youngest, to ensure a longer life.”

The findings have not only caused alarm among the country’s health sector, but they also contradict the ISS’s own 2020 assessment, in which they concluded that traditional cigarette smokers were dwindling because of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.

“This year’s numbers confirm that the pandemic has significantly influenced the consumption habits of tobacco and nicotine products of Italians,” said ISS’s Roberta Pacifici. “New tobacco products and e-cigarettes have been added to the consumption of traditional cigarettes and their users are in fact almost exclusively dual consumers.”

But while Italians continue to light up, they’re by no means the heaviest smokers in Europe.

According to the EU statistics agency Eurostat smokers make up 29.1 percent of the population in Bulgaria, which also has the highest number of people in a union country who smoke 20 or more cigarettes a day. Greece follows with 24.9 percent of the population declaring themselves to be smokers.

World Cup-winning coach, Enzo Bearzot (AP)

France, at least officially, on the other hand has a considerably lower population of smokers at 18.5 percent, despite the country’s reputation for being “Europe’s chimney”. Like Italy, the French also saw an increase in smokers because of the pandemic lockdown.

A study by the European Journal of Public Health in October 2021 concluded that nearly 27 percent of smokers in France said they had increased their use of tobacco since the first lockdown in March 2020 – a trend that can be spotted across the EU and the world.

Environmental activists have also voiced their concern for the renewed rise in cigarette consumers. In addition to health risks, cigarettes are also harming the air, water, soil and beaches. The EU recently warned that the second most common form of litter is the cigarette butt, with 4.5 trillion of them discarded each year.

“The tobacco industry should also be held to account for tobacco waste and damages following production,” the World Health Organization said on World No Tobacco Day last month.

“The tobacco industry should pay for the damage caused and be held to account for the environmental impact of its products all the way through the supply chain.”