Plan B Forum

Every lunchtime, Lisa, 14, eats her packed lunch before heading to the tuck shop of her school in Derbyshire. A gap leads to an enclave five metres behind the building, where she and about 15 others congregate to light up their lunchtime cigarette.

“There are two non-teaching members of staff who run the tuck shop and if they turned round properly they would catch us all,” she says. “We used to smoke in an alleyway that joined our two playgrounds together but then they put up fake cameras, so no one does it there any more — and you can’t do it anywhere near the loos because there are smoke alarms that go off.”

This “crafty fag” scenario has been played out in school grounds for decades. What sets Lisa’s generation apart is that they are blowing smoke in the face of the most ferocious antitobacco campaign to date, involving more warnings to young people than ever that the nasty weed can kill, cause wrinkles and seriously impinge on your social life.

Since the first government White Paper on smoking in 1998, the focus on pressurising young people not to smoke has been constant. The anti-smoking crusade has culminated in the present ban on tobacco advertising and smoking in public places, but it shows no sign of stopping there. Since the clampdown on smoking came into full force, the age at which a person can buy cigarettes legally has risen from 16 to 18, but it is hoped that a ban on sales of tobacco from vending machines, which is to be enforced next year, will make it even harder for youngsters to get hooked. Health messages are plastered on cigarette packs and picture warnings will appear on all tobacco products by October. Yet despite such steps and the millions spent on raising awareness that smoking can kill, over the past decade the rate of decline in the number of young people smoking has at best flattened out and at worst, in some areas, actually worsened.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 119928.ece