Efforts to curb child smoking 'a failure'
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Your support makes all the difference.Attempts to clamp down on under-age smoking have failed so far, according to a major study published this week.
Attempts to clamp down on under-age smoking have failed so far, according to a major study published this week.
Research from the University of Leeds, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, is expected to show that girls are twice as likely as boys to smoke and that targeting young people early is not stopping them taking up the habit.
Ministers are increasingly concerned that smoking rates among young people remain high. Figures released earlier this year showed that 8 per cent of 13-year-old girls smoked compared with 4 per cent of boys of the same age. Some schools have started issuing nicotine patches to pupils who smoke.
Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, has already pressed for the Government to ban smoking in public places, despite opposition from John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health.
ASH, the public health charity, said that measures to make smoking socially unacceptable were the only way to reach young people. New laws banning smoking in public places are expected later this year, although they would be at the discretion of local authorities. ASH would like them to be compulsory.
The charity said it hoped the recent ban on tobacco advertising would also reduce the number of young smokers but that further measures were necessary.
"It's become clear that the best way of reducing smoking is having policies that impact the whole population," said a spokeswoman, Amanda Sandford. "Making it socially unacceptable is the best way."
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