Australia: Victoria Considers New Proposals To Reduce Youth Smoking

Main Category: Smoking / Quit Smoking
Article Date: 05 Dec 2007 - 2:00 PDT

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Under a new Victorian proposal to reduce youth smoking, underage smoking will be outlawed and parents banned from lighting up in cars with children.

Nationals MP Damian Drum signalled in state parliament that he would introduce a private member's bill to reduce the number of young smokers.

The bill, to be tabled early next year, would make smoking illegal for under 18s and introduce penalties for minors caught smoking.

Under existing laws, it is illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone under 18 but minors are not penalised for smoking.

Mr Drum said a hardline stance was needed to protect children, who were currently fed mixed messages from law-makers about smoking.

"We say that smoking is bad for you and we ban them at places like schools, but then we turn a blind eye if they want to have a smoke down the street. It's not good enough and we need to do better," he said.

Mr Drum said, "While many people would regard banning smoking in cars with children as common sense, this needed to be reflected in the law."

"We have an obligation to our young people to protect them from the harmful side effects of passive smoking and there is widespread community support for such a ban."

Mr Drum said smoking among adults had virtually halved in the past 20 years but Victorian teenagers aged 16 to 17 were not giving up fast enough.

"Cigarette smoking is the biggest cause of preventable deaths in Australia and we owe it to our children to do everything we can to stop them from taking up the habit," he said.

http://www.ash.org.uk

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