Attitudes to cigarettes 1983-2001

The following is a summary of the report available from SHEU (£10 incl. p&p)

When looking over these many years of figures, we find that young people in recent years are...

• more likely, than in previous years, to 'experiment' with smoking, and in 2001 around 40% of 12-13 year olds and around 60% of 14-15 year olds had tried a cigarette
• consistently reporting that around 50% of 14-15 year olds have a close friend that smokes regularly
• more likely, than in previous years, to live in a home where someone regularly smokes indoors (in 2001, over 50% of pupils lived in a home where somebody smoked)

• 75% of smokers want to give up smoking, a proportion that has not risen despite anti-smoking campaigns and health education programmes
• they are more likely, than in previous years, to have smoked at least 10 cigarettes in the past week with 90% of the older smokers having less than 25 cigarettes a week
• they are more likely to smoke if family and close friends are smokers - 14-15 year old females are 8 times more likely to smoke if they have a close friend who smokes - but families may be the most important influence
• they are less likely to buy cigarettes from a shop than in previous years