Fact Sheet Children and Tobacco

Enlarge this Dateless Smoker

Australian Council on Smoking & Health 334 Rokeby Road, Subiaco 6008.

• Every year in Australia 70,000 teenagers become regular smokers.

• Each day more than 500 Australian school children smoke their first cigarette.

• In Australia more girls than boys smoke regularly. In Western Australia, by Year 10, 26% of boys and 27% of girls usually smoke cigarettes one or more times a week.

• Researchers found that in Australia in a week, 28% of 15 year old girls and 25% of 15 year old boys smoked cigarettes.

• Each day, 192 Australian school children become regular smokers - three times the number of people who die each day from diseases caused by smoking.

• In Western Australia, by Year 7, more than a third (37%) of the girls and over half (55%) of the boys have at some stage smoked or at least puffed on a cigarette.

• Three quarters of adults who smoke began smoking when they were adolescents.

• One out of every three adult smokers started smoking before they were 9 years old.

• In Australia, if present smoking trends continue, 256,000 boys and 159,000 girls who are now under the age of 14 will die before their time because they smoked.

• The younger the children are when they start smoking the more likely they are to die of a smoking-related disease.

• Children whose parents tell them not to smoke or children who believe that their parents would disapprove of them smoking are less likely to smoke than children who do not receive such messages from their parents.

• Children are less likely to smoke if their parents do not smoke.

• Children who see themselves as poor students are more likely to smoke.

• Young teenage girls who don't know the health risks of smoking are more likely to become regular smokers than those who are aware of the health risks.

• Children who smoke suffer more respiratory problems than children who do not smoke.

• Adolescent smokers can develop the customary smoker's cough within a year or two of becoming regular smokers.

• In Western Australia it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children and young people under 18. The law states: no person shall sell, give or supply tobacco in any form or cigarette paper to or for the use of any person under the age of eighteen years. But 54% of school children who are regular smokers purchase their cigarettes from shops.

• In New South Wales it is illegal to sell cigarettes to children under 18. But a survey showed 53% of 15 year olds who smoke purchase their cigarettes from shops.

• Children smoke the most heavily advertised brands of cigarettes.

• The most popular brands of cigarettes for adolescent boy are Winfield and Peter Jackson. Adolescent girls prefer Winfield, Peter Jackson and Alpine.

• The advertising efforts on the part of the Peter Jackson cigarette brand are reflected in its rise from 1% of the Australian adolescent market in 1983 to 37% in 1987.

• Young children first become conscious of cigarettes as early as 4 months and by the age of 3 years more than 90% of children are familiar with cigarettes.

• Children in families where there are smokers suffer more coughs and respiratory infections than those children in families where there are no smokers.