UK Raising Age to Smoke, But Will it Work to Stop Teens From Lighting Up?

To stub out smoking even more in the UK, the government takes the bull by the horns and comes up with another campaign to highlight new law raising the legal age youngsters can buy cigarettes from 16, to 18 years old.

As the government gets ready to raise the legal limit to buy cigarettes in the UK, a new website has been launched not to mention a giant mailing list aimed to target over 100,000 tobacco retailers as well as more advertising aimed at the smoking teenage market. We ask, will this actually make a difference? In the UK, we have already seen the new law come in to play on the 1st of this month to abolish smoking in all enclosed public areas. As from the 1st of October this year, we will see the minimum age raise from 16 to 18 in the hope that teenagers will think twice about taking up the habit, but will this genuinely put them off or is is yet more public money down the drain? Many, myself included and speaking as an ex-smoker, think that if teens are going to smoke, they will, despite all the advertising in the world. They don't take it up to kill themselves, they do it because they know its wrong, and that, my friends, is the whole part of being a naturally rebellious teen. In the UK, it is thought that around 9% of 11 to 15 years old smoke on a regular basis. This is down to either their older siblings smoking and/or their parents and those around them smoking. I wonder if a few million spent on advertising is going to change this. If the parents do not wish to pack in the weed, it is hardly likely that the children will follow suit. Yet the UK government are adamant that the new campaign aimed at the younger generation will undoubtedly work. Working together with retailers to stop under age smokers, the authorities hope to cut the figures by half, and probably by Christmas. Will this get the backing from the retailers who still need to make money to stay open? When I started smoking, our local newsagent made a fortune selling cigarettes to a few hundred children from the local school - I guess we were the only reason he stayed in business in an area which was already run down and riddled with crime. So do middle class MP's understand the realities of this new law? What they may think is happening is just a great many retailers actually still selling to kids to make a giant profit. It has worked, we are to believe on the other side of the pond. Our friends in Canada, New Zealand and the US already have laws in place stopping children buying tobacco and alcohol. It is about time we followed suit in the UK, but how? According to recent figures, only a quarter of children under the age of 16 find it difficult to buy tobacco from a retailer, and I doubt this will increase. Many newsagents in the suburbs in the UK are struggling, stying open late and seven days a week to make ends meet. If a kid comes to them to spend five or six pounds on a packet of smokes and then invites his mates in too, the shop keeper is hardly going to turn the offer away - it could be the most money his has taken all day. In the meantime, Public Health Minister, Dawn Primarolo said about the new campaign,

"Currently, half of all teenagers who smoke will die from diseases caused by tobacco if they continue to smoke throughout the course of their life. Raising the minimum age at which teenagers can be sold tobacco products will reduce the availability of cigarettes, and could therefore discourage young people from taking up smoking in the first place."

So if there are is the odd retailer who wants to take a chance to make a fast buck or two, then he/she will have to face the consequences, and they could cost him/her up to £2,500. Not a figure that a retailer wants to see walk away from his till. Top man of the Association of Convenience Stores, Mr James Lowman, said of the news,

"Retailers will be the front line defence against under 18s buying tobacco and this campaign will help them to do this job."

Yet the weaknesses are still there - the old black and white films, the romance we have with the cigarette, the message we have to get across is that it isn't cool. Kids want to be hip, if you pardon the expression and so long as the element is there, they will continue to smoke. So what made me give up a year ago? I turned 35 and looked at my son and thought, what if he looses me? That was enough for me to give up. Kids don't have that pull of responsibility, so to compensate we have to take away the urge to smoke - and by doing that, we should think like teenagers and not like middle aged MP's in expensive suits.