SHANGHAI - Almost one in four students aged between 12 and 14 have tried smoking,according to the results of a survey released by the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control(CATC).
The survey, carried out among 38,839 students and 6,503 teachers from middle and highschools in 11 provinces across the country between May and June, showed that 22.5 percentof students aged between 12 and 14 had tried smoking and that 15.8 percent of middle andhigh school students smoke regularly.
"There are definitely quite a number of boy students in my class who smoke regularly as somehave been found smoking outside campus during lunch break," said Li Xiaolan, an Englishteacher from a high school in Shanghai.
The survey also found that 39 percent of students took their first cigarette from theirclassmates.
"It was quite common to smoke with my classmates at school and we usually smoked in toiletsor in corners of the playground after lunch," said Zhou Guangrong, a 22-year-old universitystudent from Guiyang, Guizhou province, who started smoking when he was 12.
The majority of student smokers buy cigarettes themselves and about 76 percent of theadolescent smokers said that there is at least one cigarette shop within 200 meters from theirschool.
"When I was a student at middle and high schools, they were surrounded by cigarette shops,"said Zhou who used to smoke two cigarettes per day in primary school and two packs per weekin middle and high school.
"We're keen to show that more adolescents are starting smoking much younger than before,and that we need to minimize the number of young smokers," said Duan Jiali, secretary-generalof the youth tobacco control commission under CATC.
Duan added that teachers and parents should set a good example for teenagers by notsmoking in front of them at school or at home, which is the most influential way of stoppingadolescents from smoking.
China banned smoking in 16 types of public indoor venues - including hospitals, schools, bars,restaurants and hotels - on May 1 in an attempt to curb tobacco use in the country with theworld's largest number of smokers.
Currently, there are more than 300 million smokers in China, and about 1.2 million people diefrom smoking-related diseases every year, accounting for one-fifth of the world's total,according to statistics from the World Health Organization.
"Meanwhile, about 540 million people are exposed to secondhand smoke, 48.9 percent ofwhich are adolescents (from 15 to 19 years old)," said Xu Guihua, deputy director of the CATC.
"It's essential and urgent for us to control the number of adult smokers who potentially temptadolescents to smoke."
China Daily
Tomado de;
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-08/16/content_13119563.htm
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