Australia: Warnings Up In Smoke With Teenagers

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 28 Jan 2008 - 16:00 PDT

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A study has found that young smokers are refusing to give up despite being aware that smoking could kill them.

A study of 2671 Australian teens show that teenage smokers are more aware of the dangers of smoking than their non-smoking peers, but continue to smoke. This means the 42,000 Victorian teens who smoke more than a million cigarettes a week know the risks of smoking but just don't care.

Both the Federal Government's National Tobacco Youth Strategy and the Victorian campaigns are based primarily on the health dangers of smoking, which are having little effect on young people.

Officials concede more novel approaches are needed.

Quit Victoria is trying the use of SMS messaging which involves quitters receiving inspirational messages on their mobile phones to boost their chances of quitting.

New technologies such as high definition TV and internet campaigns and forums are also being considered.

Fiona Sharkie, Quit Victoria executive director, said the problem was that young people knew the health risks of smoking but thought that any damage "couldn't happen to them".

She said the biggest predictor of whether a young person smoked was whether those around them smoked.

Ms Sharkie added, "Smoking is also presented by the tobacco industry as fashionable, groovy and sophisticated, which young people feel is a more attractive message than one telling them they are going to get lung cancer."

But Ms Sharkie said some messages were getting through as only 8 per cent of young people aged 12-17 smoked, the lowest ever and the number of teens taking up smoking was reducing.

The study by Jason Mazanov and Don Burne is published in the latest Australian Journal of Psychology.

http://www.ash.org.uk