Roll-Your-Own Cigarette Use and Smoking Cessation Behaviour: A Cross-Sectional Population Study in England

Abstract

Objectives: Roll-your-own (RYO) cigarettes have become popular in the UK and reduce the cost of smoking, potentially mitigating the impact of tax increases on quitting. We examined whether RYO cigarette use was associated with reduced motivation to quit smoking, incidence of quit attempts and quit success.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Setting: England

Participants: 38 590 adults who reported currently smoking or having stopped within the past 12 months.

Main outcome measures: Motivation to quit smoking, quit attempt in the last year, motives for quitting and quit success were regressed onto RYO cigarette use, adjusting for sociodemographic variables and level of cigarette addiction. Mediation by weekly spending on smoking was tested.

Results: Compared with manufactured cigarette smokers, RYO smokers had lower odds of high motivation to quit (OR=0.77, 95% CI 0.73 to 0.81) or having made a quit attempt (OR=0.87, 95% CI 0.84 to 0.91). Among those who had attempted to quit smoking, quit success did not differ by cigarette type (OR=1.00, 95% CI 0.89 to 1.12), but RYO smokers were less likely to report cost of smoking as a motive to quit (OR=0.68, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.74). Spending on smoking mediated the association between RYO use and quit attempts (β=−0.02, SE=0.003, 95% CI −0.03 to −0.02).

Conclusions: In England, compared with smokers of manufactured cigarettes, RYO cigarette smokers appear to have lower motivation to quit and lower incidence of quit attempts but similar success of quit attempts. The lower cost of RYO smoking appears to mediate the lower incidence of quit attempts among RYO users.