Smoking for beginners
IT was a Saturday morning not too long ago when a boy stopped me outside the Co-op in Moulton to ask if I would go inside and buy him a packet of fags.
I stared at him as he stood there clutching a fiver hopefully in his outstretched hand and realised that he could not be more than 12, although he swore that he had definitely celebrated his 16th birthday.
Needless to say, I said no and suggested that if he indeed was over 16 maybe one of his family would buy his cigarettes for him. Five minutes later I spotted him riding past me on a bike, cigarette dangling from mouth, after obviously finding a less conscience-stricken adult to help him in his quest for nicotine.
This story is just one example of an everyday problem and an issue which the Government is now seeking to address.
Government figures show that across the country 23 per cent of those under 16 who tried to buy tobacco found it difficult to do so and evidence has also shown that nearly 70 per cent of 11 to 15-year-olds smokers say they buy their cigarettes from small shops .
Nationally about nine per cent of young people aged between 11 and 15 smoke and from October, in a bid to cut this figure, the Government will increase the age of buying tobacco from 16 to 18.
Northamptonshire County Council Trading Standards officer Carol Gamble said the change in law would make life easier for retailers.
She said: "There will be quite a lot of information coming from central Government but we will also produce leaflets and posters. We will also be doing personal visits.
"The age for the sale of knives is also due to increase to 18 from 16 and it is good because it does make it easier for the retailer to have a clear idea of what the law says (because they will be in line with drinking laws)."
The good news is that, since April 2006, trading standards has made seven visits to Northamptonshire shops in which underage test purchasers were asked to try to buy tobacco, but there were no cases in which the sale was made.
But successful purchases were made from vending machines by teenagers aged 13 and 14 at seven out of 10 "family friendly" pubs in the county.
Ms Gamble said: "In these cases the young people were 13 or 14 who made the attempt to make purchases but they were closely supervised. They weren't challenged in any of these cases."
In Northamptonshire, health workers have welcomed the law change; while also recognising that breaking smoking habits in young people is a "tough nut to crack."
Karen Timson, tobacco control lead at the Northamptonshire Teaching Primary Care Trust said the new rule would make life easier for retailers.
But she emphasised the importance of stopping youngsters before they start, speaking about the failure of a pilot scheme which was carried out at schools in the south of the county about 18 months ago.
There, 30 pupils signed up for support to stop smoking but at the end of the year long pilot scheme none of those who took part gave up long term.
It is believed the scheme, which included 2,000 spent on nicotine replacement therapy alone, could have cost as much as 10,000. Ms Timson said: "When it came down to the crunch no one quit."
Jo Davis, a specialist from the Northamptonshire PCT Stop Smoking team, said: "Thirty signed up on registration day but we had the Easter holidays and by the time it was back to school a lot had probably forgotten about it."
Ms Timson added: "Dot Cotton is still smoking on Eastenders and when you have films where young actors and actresses are puffing away, what message does that send to young people? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know what message that sends out.
"It only takes between two and 10 fags to become hooked."
Northamptonshire health bosses have since axed nicotine replacement therapy as part of a set of countywide cutbacks, but Ms Timson said she hoped the board would reconsider in the next financial year.
She said: "If you combine nicotine replacement therapy with stop smoking support you quadruple your chances of being successful."
Ms Timson said she was hopeful that when the law makes public places smoke-free from July 1 this year, there would also be an impact on the number of young people smoking.
She said: "These young people will see their parents giving up and they will see they can't smoke in pubs or certain clubs and music bars. Whether they stand on street corners, or go home, they are pretty stuffed."
The Stop Smoking Team is now working with local authorities, the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service and the Saints rugby team on the Smoke Free Homes Initiative.
The scheme sees schoolchildren encouraging their parents to stop smoking by signing up to a promise.
Mrs Davis said representatives also visit primary schools in Northamptonshire to put across the anti-smoking message before children are old enough to start secondary school at age 10 or 11- the most common time for a youngster to start smoking.
She said: "More young girls smoke than young boys because of peer pressure and more young lads don't because they might be involved with rugby or football.Weight is the issue with young girls, they have this perception that with smoking they will lose weight.
"If young people are coming home where their parents smoke, there is a likelihood they will go on to smoke themselves."
She said, when educating youngsters, talking about the effects on their looks often seemed to be more effective than simply listing the negative effects smoking has on health.
She commented: "At one of the local schools in Daventry I found that when talking about how smoking would effect your health, I could have been talking to a brick wall.
"But when I put up signs of how you could look with yellow skin and gum disease, they said 'urgh.' That is how we grab their attention."
She continued: "My own personal point of view about the changes to the age of buying tobacco is I don't think 16 to 18 is very different.
"A 16-year-old girl can look very similar to an 18-year-old and a lot will get their cigarettes from mum, dad, granny or grandad to buy them. They have to be far more disciplined with ID."
'It wasn't peer pressure . . . I wanted to smoke'
TEENAGER Rachel Timson gave up smoking six months ago, ending a habit which had spanned six years.
The former Campion School pupil, from Eastcote in Northamptonshire, started smoking at age 13 but believes peer pressure was not the original cause of the habit.
She said: "It wasn't peer pressure or anything like that, I just wanted to do it. I wasn't pressured into it by my friends, I decided to do it. It was probably more to do with the pressure I put on myself than anything else.
"No one ever asked me to do it and I did it off my own back."
But the original one-a-day habit she developed at the age of 13 and 14 gradually grew until she was smoking 10 cigarettes a day, before she quit a few months ago, aged 19.
She said: "When I was at school, there were areas of the school where people congregated. There were well-known areas where people could sneak a fag.
"I used to have friends who were older who would buy them for me, it wasn't that hard."
Now grown up and studying German at the University of Kent in Canterbury she decided to stop a habit she had started to hate.
She said: "For ages I had been thinking of the health risk and I hated the smell.
"I enjoyed it when I was out with a beer and a cigarette but I had a boyfriend who was really supportive and he said I should stop and I decided to stop."
With a bit of help from some Nicorette gum and support from her boyfriend and her mother Karen Timson, who works for the Primary Care Trust in Northamptonshire on work to prevent smoking, Rachel managed to stop the habit.
She now believes raising the age of tobacco sales could help young smokers.
She said: "I think this is a really good idea as people wouldn't be able to buy them as easily. It would mean that extra effort and would mean on certain days people might not be able to have their packet of cigarettes."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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