Campaigns to reduce teenage smoking have failed

CALLS FOR a ban on tobacco advertising were renewed yesterday after new government statistics showed that the number of children who smoke has remained almost the same since the mid-1980s, writes Liz Hunt.

Intensive campaigns which warn young smokers of the health dangers and their general 'unattractiveness' to the opposite sex, appear to have failed. The Government has now accepted that its target for a reduction in teenage smoking to 6 per cent or less by 1994 will not be achieved.

Figures for 1992 compiled by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys show that 10 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds in England, 9 per cent in Wales and 11 per cent of 12 to 15-year-olds in Scotland, smoked at least one cigarette a week. Young Scottish girls (13 per cent) were more likely to be regular smokers than boys (10 per cent).

Smoking Among Secondary School Children 1992; Margaret Thomas, Sue Holroyd and Eileen Goddard; HMSO; pounds 12.70.