Youth Online Smoking Product Purchases Quadruple, Experts Demand Stronger Age Verification
New data from the Initiative to Eradicate Smoking reveals a sharp rise in the percentage of 15-17-year-olds purchasing smoking and nicotine products online, increasing from 4.7% in 2022 to 21.1% in 2025. This more than fourfold increase over three years highlights a growing trend among minors accessing restricted products via the internet, despite legal prohibitions.
The initiative warns that current online age declarations, which often require only a simple confirmation of being over 18 or entering a birthdate, are insufficient to prevent underage purchases. They call for effective age verification mechanisms throughout the entire purchase process, including at the point of delivery, to ensure products are not handed to minors. The initiative also stresses that age verification should extend beyond payment to limit minors' exposure to marketing content, customer clubs, coupons, and targeted advertising related to smoking products.
Contrastingly, adults aged 22 and over have shown a decline in online purchases of these products, from 8.2% in 2022 to 7% in 2025, indicating that the surge is specific to youth rather than a general shift in consumer behavior.
The initiative submitted formal comments to the Privacy Protection Authority's draft regulations on online age verification, advocating for privacy-preserving systems that confirm only whether a user is over 18 without revealing personal details like ID numbers or full birthdates. They also demand that data collected for age verification not be used for marketing or profiling.
Shira Keslo, CEO of the Initiative to Eradicate Smoking, emphasized the urgency: "If age verification can be bypassed with a click or deliveries are made without identity checks, protection for minors remains only theoretical. We must safeguard both privacy and children by implementing smart verification methods covering all stages from marketing exposure to product delivery."
