Youth Smoking
Most smokers take up smoking before the age of 18. Children whose parents or siblings smoke are around three times more likely to smoke than children living in non-smoking households.
Although around 60% of teenagers report that they have never smoked, among those who do experiment with smoking many become addicted to nicotine and continue to smoke as adults.
The effectiveness of youth-focused health education is limited and at best appears to delay the age of starting to smoke. It appears that the best way of reducing youth smoking is to have comprehensive tobacco control policies in place that apply to the whole population.
Essential Information 03: Young People and Smoking (Purchase £1.00)
NICE guidance on preventing the uptake of smoking by children and young people (External Web Page)
This guidance covers mass media and point of sales measures only. The guidance stresses that these measures should be combined with other prevention strategies as part of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy.
ASH Submission to Under-age sales consultation
ASH’s response to the Government consultation on under-age sales of tobacco. ASH supports the proposal to raise the minimum age from 16 to 18 and favours a positive licensing system to reduce illegal sales.Department of Health consultation on under-age sale of tobacco (External Web Page)
The Department of Health invited comments on the Government’s proposal to raise the legal age for the purchase of tobacco from 16 to 18. It also proposes measures to strengthen sanctions against retailers who break the law. The consultation closed 2 October 2006.
This links to the section on the ASH website on school resources. ASH does not produce resource strictly for use by schools. Our publications can be used (such as Facts at a glance and Essential Information on). We have provided links to other organisation and websites that do provide resources specifically for schools to use.
This section of the ASH website contains a variety visual resources come from many sources. Note that ASH does not own these images and cannot grant formal permission for their use.
Roy Castle Foundation anti tobacco youth campaign (External Web Page)
Roy Castle Lung Foundation's Youth Advocacy Project. The website is run by young people for young people.
Roy Castle Foundation: Kids Against Tobacco Youth (External Web Page)
Website by the Roy Castle Lung Foundation for children.
Florida's 'Truth' campaign (External Web Page)
Structured like a console game, the site invites exploration of facts, myths and realities of tobacco - with excellent quotes and other resources.
Latest Archived Items - access the rest of the archive here
Smoking and public health: a review of interventions to increase smoking cessation, reduce smoking initiation (External PDF)
This report by the Health Development Agency (from 2005 the National Institute of Clinical Evidence) provides a systematic review of the evidence relating to interventions to prevent young people from starting to smoke. It also reviews interventions that work best to help smokers of all ages to quit. It suggests that some youth smoking prevention measures may be effective but the evidence for initiatives such as retail interventions is less clear. April 2004
Not Big and Not Clever! Youth smoking prevention explored:
This review of youth smoking prevention campaigns finds that few that have made much difference apart from, at best, a delay in the onset of smoking.
Cochrane Review: Community interventions for preventing smoking in young people (External Web Page)
By A Sowden and L Stead. There is limited support for the effectiveness of community interventions in helping prevent the uptake of smoking in young people. 20 Jan 2003
