The share of smokers in Russian society decreased over the year by only one percent (from 32 to 31%).
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This is evidenced by the results of a survey conducted by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).
19% of respondents smoke a pack or more a day, another 10% smoke several cigarettes almost every day, 3% smoke two or three cigarettes a week. Men are more susceptible to this bad habit (almost every second person smokes – 48%). About two respondents (67%), according to them, 20% of them smoked but quit (among men this proportion is 30%).
Despite the high percentage of smokers, the initiative of the Ministry of Health to introduce a complete ban on the sale of cigarettes to persons born after 2014 was supported by 61%. In groups of smokers, this proportion varies from 51 to 59%.
“Measures to limit tobacco consumption taken by the state since 2013 have had an effect: the number of smokers has decreased by 10%.. Further decline will occur with slowing dynamics. A new package of radical measures is needed,” says VTsIOM expert Kirill Rodin.
An initiative all-Russian survey by VTsIOM was conducted on January 20-22, 2017. The survey method was a telephone interview using a stratified two-base random sample of landline and mobile numbers of 1800 respondents.