50 Kids Have to Take Up Smoking Each Day ..To Save Tobacco Industry ; BAD HEALTH

May 31, 01:39 AM

Current Headlines: By LYNN JOLLY

IRELAND'S tobacco industry needs 50 children to start smoking every day to keep going, a top expert warned yesterday.

American Professor Ken Warner said TV programmes, Hollywood movies and shop displays are being used to encourage youngsters to smoke.

He added: "In Ireland the tobacco industry loses more than 8,000 of its customers every year due to quitting and a further 5,700 due to smoking-produced death.

"Several thousand smokers also die of other causes. For every smoker who dies or quits, the industry needs a replacement smoker - a child who will become addicted and replenish the base of long- term smokers.

"Therefore, for the industry to simply maintain the size of its customer base in Ireland, over 50 Irish kids have to start smoking every day of the year."

His warning comes as a national ban on 10-packs of cigarettes starts tomorrow in a bid to stop young people smoking.

Office of Tobacco Control research showed 53 per cent of all Irish smokers started the habit at 15 or younger. Professor Warner stressed the tobacco industry is not to blame for every youngster who gets addicted to smokes.

He added: "But it does mean the industry has a huge incentive to see kids starting to smoke and remaining as smokers.

"And evidence - particularly that discovered as a result of lawsuits in the US - indicates that the industry has long been aware of that, and long tried to create replacement smokers."

Stars smoking on TV and in films is a well-used tool to get publicity.

Prof Warner said: "One study demonstrated that 31 per cent of teens who saw more than 150 clips of smoking in films in cinemas, on video or on television had tried smoking.

"This compared with only four per cent among teens who had seen less than 50 clips.

"It's worth noting that between 1988 and 1997, 85 per cent of the top 25 box office Hollywood films dramatised the use of tobacco.

"During the same period, a third of films rated for adolescents - and one in five children's movies rated G or PG - showed cigarette brand logos."

For each person who dies or quits cigarettes, companies need a replacement - a child who will become addicted - PROFESSOR WARNER

news@irishmirror.ie

(c) 2007 Daily Mirror. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.