Youth Smoking - Archive
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The ASH Archive contains information that is no longer current but is useful reference material. The information is held in a separate archive of each page.
Documents in the Archives can be accessed by a link on each page or by the ASH Archives page or by using the advanced search.
For details on Use/Copyright please read the ASH Archives page.
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
World Health Organization briefing: A critique of youth smoking prevention initiatives
This briefing was presented at the negotiating meetings on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in Geneva. It explains why Big Tobacco's involvement in youth smoking prevention is such a disingenous initiative.Cease and desist: butt out of youth smoking prevention initiatives
October 2002: ASH and organisations representing the three major health networks (heart, lung, and cancer) wrote an open letter to Big Tobacco, instructing the tobacco companies to stop running their mendacious Youth Smoking Prevention (YSP) programmes. The open letter coincided with the release of a WHO briefing slamming the tobacco companies involvement in YSP.
Reducing tobacco sales to kids (External Web Page)
A report by the Canadian Cancer Society reveal that very few access interventions have any impact on youth smoking rates. The document: A critical analysis of youth access laws, examines the effectiveness of laws in reducing youth access to tobacco and their impact, if any, on smoking behaviour.
Health Canada’s Ministerial Advisory Committee on Tobacco Control used the Society’s analysis as the foundation for its report entitled: Challenging Conventional Wisdom on Youth Access to Tobacco: Redefining Youth Access Interventions. This report recommends that the focus of the current laws move away from retailer compliance and move towards decreasing the social acceptability of providing tobacco to young people.
British American Tobacco - the other report to society (Purchase Hard Copy £5.00)
June 2002: ASH's response to British American Tobacco's 'stakeholder dialogue' and its social reporting. We explain exactly why BAT is irresponsible and unethical - and it's much more than merely selling deadly products.
Journal Article: Tobacco Industry Youth Smoking Prevention Programs: Protecting the Industry and Hurting Tobacco Control (External Web Page)
By Anne Landman, Pamela Ling, and Stanton A. Glantz. The authors conclude: The industry started these programs in the 1980s to forestall legislation that would restrict industry activities. Industry programs portray smoking as an adult choice and fail to discuss how tobacco advertising promotes smoking or the health dangers of smoking. The industry use these programs to fight taxes, clean-air laws, and marketing restrictions worldwide. There is no evidence that these programs decrease smoking among youths. American Journal of Public Health June 2002.
Journal Article: Youth access interventions do not affect youth smoking (External Web Page)
The authors conclude: Given the limited resources available for tobacco control, as well as the expense of conducting youth access programmes, tobacco control advocates should abandon this strategy and devote the limited resources that are available towards other interventions with proven effectiveness. Fichtenberg and Glantz. Pediatrics Vol 109. No 6. June 2002.
Getting to the truth: Evaluating national tobacco countermarketing campaigns
This paper compares a tobacco industry campaign with a public health campaign.
Industry youth smoking prevention initiatives PowerPoint Presentation
June 2002: Presentation (36 slides) based on Danger! PR in the playground with graphic examples of youth smoking initiatives and evidence from tobacco industry documents.
Cochran Review: Community interventions for reducing smoking among adults (External Web Page)
By Secker-Walker RH, Gnich W, Platt S, Lancaster T.
Since smoking behaviour is determined by social context, the best way to reduce the prevalence of smoking may be to use community-wide programmes which use multiple channels to provide reinforcement, support and norms for not smoking. 22 April 2002
Journal Article: The strategy behind Florida's "Truth" campaign (External Web Page)
This article sets out the seven principles behind Florida's youth smoking campaign. The author regards these principles as critical to its success. Hicks, J. Tobacco Control 2001: 10 (Spring)
Journal Article: The Florida "truth" anti-tobacco media evaluation: design, first year results, and implications for planning future state media evaluations (External Web Page)
Article in the Tobacco Control Journal that showed that the strategy used in the Florida campaign resulted in high rates of recall, significant changes in attitudes/beliefs, and reduced rates of smoking behaviour among youth. Tobacco Control 2001, 10 (Spring)
Report on Tobacco industry funded youth anti-smoking campaign
British American Tobacco, Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco pay £2.4 million in advertising campaign on MTV aimed at persuading young people not to smoke. Why would they want to do this? This ASH reports looks at the reasons behind this campaign.
Danger! PR in the Playground: Tobacco industry youth anti-smoking programmes
October 2000: Tobacco companies such as British American Tobacco and Philip Morris have adopted a public posture of opposition to teenage smoking and even funded anti-smoking initiatives for teenagers. But an investigation by ASH and The Cancer Research Campaign has revealed that this is no more than a sinister and cynical public relations strategy. The purpose is to fend off meaningful restrictions on tobacco advertising and gain PR advantage, while proposing only measures that are unlikely to reduce youth smoking and likely make it more attractive by positioning cigarettes as an adult product and smoking as rebellious.
Danger! PR in the playground (German)
German translation of the Danger! PR in the playground report.
Danger! PR in the playground (Spanish)
Spanish translation of the Danger! PR in the Playground report.Danger! PR in the playground (French)
French translation of the Danger! PR in the playground report.Danger! PR in the playground (Russian)
Russian translation of the summary of the Danger! PR in the playground report.
Danger! PR in the playground (Mandarin)
Mandarin translation of the Danger! PR in the playground report
Danger! PR in the playground (Arabic)
Summary of the Danger! PR in the playground report in Arabic.
Images of tobacco industry youth smoking initiatives
These are typical images used by the Tobacco Industry for their youth smoking initiatives.
Danger! PR in the playground: tobacco industry initiatives on youth smoking (Purchase Hard Copy £10.00)
Tobacco companies have adopted a public posture of opposition to teenage smoking. This report reveals why this stance amounts to little more than a sinister and cynical public relations strategy.
Journal Article: Investing in youth tobacco control: a review of smoking prevention and control strategies (External Web Page)
The authors conclude: youth smoking prevention and control efforts have had mixed results. Several types of strategies warrant additional attention and evaluation, including aggressive media campaigns, teen smoking cessation programmes, social environment changes, community interventions, and increasing cigarette prices. Lantz et al. Tobacco Control 2000: 9 (Spring)
Journal Article: A hard road: finding ways to reduce teen tobacco use (External Web Page)
A thoughtful editorial in the journal Tobacco Control. The author says: we have to be willing to acknowledge when we have lost our way and humble ourselves enough to ask for directions. Too often advocates have chosen to forge ahead as if we actually knew where we were going. The result has been to continue down paths that were not productive simply because we did not want to be wrong. Sutton C. Tobacco Control 2000: 9 (Spring)
"Need a fag, Need a fag" Smoking and Young People
Focus group research with kids ages 10-15 testing some tobacco industry ideas on youth smoking. Six qualitative discussion groups.
Smoking cessation in young people: should we do more to help young smokers quit
Health Development Agency report on how best to approach smoking cessation (not prevention) for young people. Asks the question: should we do more to help young people stop smoking?
Journal article: Smoking prevention and cessation in schools (External Web Page)
Cluster randomised controlled trial of expert system based on the stages of change model for smoking prevention and cessation in schools. The intervention in this trial was ineffective in schoolchildren aged 13-14. BMJ 9 October 1999
School-based, youth centred smoking intervention programmes: to be or not to be?
Paper prepared for the World Health Organization conference on tobacco and youth – Singapore 1999.Journal Article: Why we should tackle adult smoking first (External Web Page)
Short and inspired paper seeting out the reasons for the ineffectiveness of school-based youth-focussed intervention. Also has recommendation on what to do, if a schools programme absolutely has to run. By Anne Charlton 1999.
Journal Article: Why we should tackle adult smoking first
Summary by Australia's David Hill of the arguments in favour of adult smoking cessation rather than primary youth prevention measures as the best use of scarce resources in tobacco control. From Tobacco Control 1999 ;8:333-335.
Journal Article: Editorial: Failure of an intervention to stop teenagers smoking (External Web Page)
BMJ Editoral by Donald Reid. Is it too much hope that this experiment marks the end of attempts to find a quick fix, school based solution to the problem of teenage smoking? If it is, these are disappointing findings will be of greater benefit to public health than they appear. March 1999.
Cochrane Review: Mass media interventions for preventing smoking in young people (External Web Page)
By A Sowden and L Arblaster. Mass media campaign may deter some young people from starting smoking. Campaigns which have researched and developed their message have a higher success rate than those that did not. 26 October 1998
