Sheila Duffy: Young people key to stubbing out lethal habit

Published on Thursday 8 October 2009 09:23

Youth engagement is helping put a stop to smoking, says Sheila Duffy

THE increased involvement of young people in educating their peers about the harm caused by smoking will be a focus at ASH Scotland's AGM in Edinburgh today.

The tobacco industry has always needed to attract young people to replace the 49,000 smokers in Scotland who quit or die every year. Annually, they are replaced by 15,000 young people who take up the habit. So it is great to see young people taking an interest and learning about an industry that relies on recruiting them to maintain its high sales and profits.

Young people also have fresh eyes to those already working in the field. They have different views, opinions, and ideas and often become involved for different reasons to adults. Tobacco is a cross-cutting area providing a wide variety of issues for young people to explore and act upon such as health, the developing world, advertising and marketing, the environment, the media, and multi-national business.

More and more teenagers are becoming involved in youth-led projects, such as peer education and youth advocacy. Peer education is an approach which believes young people are often more receptive to information given by those of similar age, background, and culture.

Across Scotland, peer education projects raise awareness and engage with young people on a range of health issues, including smoking.

In June this year, Scotland's first ever pro-choice smoking information group led by and for young people was launched. W-WEST – Why Waste Everything Smoking Tobacco – is a great resource for young people and those who work with them and its website provides advice and information for all in Scotland.

Teenage smoking has often been seen as cool or a rite of passage, but legislation, information campaigns, and youth projects have led to a cultural shift so that we now are not only seeing fewer teenage smokers, but also more engagement in prevention. This is something we should all welcome and encourage.

Sheila Duffy is chief executive of ASH Scotland