Early anti-smoking campaigns urged

Press, 25 February 1981, Page 12

Early anti-smoking campaigns urged

Anti-smoking campaigns should begin with young children aged about eight, according to an American specialist in smoking, Dr J. L. Schwartz. Dr Schwartz, who has been giving seminars on smoking and health for the National Heart Foundatio. has spent 26 years in public health research, with a particular interest in the effects of smoking. “It is no use waiting until people reach their teenage years to point out the deathly effects, of smoking: by then it is too late,” he said in Christchurch. Children of primaryschool Age were naturally curious about how their bodies worked and the effects of smoking on the main organs of the body could be graphically dem- • onstrated to’-them. . . \ “In the .United States there is considerable success with' a programme

where children ‘move through’ models of the organs of the body which show the changes wrought by smoking or alcohol. The idea is to show facts, not to use fear tactics.” Dr Schwartz said that primary school . and early I high school programmes to keep young people from succumbing to peergrcup pressure to smoke needed to involve the young people in simple research. People who wanted to stop smoking should take comfort from the fact that , 34 million people ip the United States had stopped smoking . by themselves and about one million through anti-smoking- programmes. ' ' 1, : /'■ Hospitals, shoull provide. coursesto help people stop, shaoking. A Small; charge could be made for siich a course to-/-give people the incentive ft> put real effort into it.