Marketing blamed for rise in child smokers

Smoking by teenagers across Europe has remained alarmingly high because of "aggressive marketing" by the tobacco industry, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

In a report on the "tobacco epidemic" facing Europe and the former Soviet bloc, WHO estimated that 30 per cent of 15 to 18-year-olds smoked regularly. The proportion, which is equal to the 30 per cent of smokers among European adults, has not gone down in the past five years.

The figures will be presented to health ministers from 51 countries who are meeting in Poland on Monday and Tuesday to discuss the "greatest public health challenge" facing WHO's European region.

They will be asked to sign a declaration stating that children and young people be warned about the "addictive and lethal nature of tobacco consumption and the recruiting tactics of the tobacco industry".

The document also calls for high tobacco taxes to be enforced throughout the region, with bans on all tobacco advertising, sponsorship and promotion, smoke-free workplaces and public places, and strict controls on smuggling. Subsidies for tobacco production should also be phased out.

The declaration, to be considered in Warsaw, says that "alarming trends in tobacco consumption" among young people, women and the poor should be given priority. A youth manifesto will also be drafted at the conference, calling for "better protection from aggressive marketing".

Yvette Cooper, the Health minister who will represent Britain at the conference, signalled yesterday that a ban on tobacco advertising in the press, on billboards and on the internet could be pushed through the Commons this summer.

The WHO report said that teenage smoking rates had remained stable in most western European countries, including Britain, where 27 per cent of youngsters smoked. But they had increased in the east of the region, where girls were now catching up with the higher smoking rates among boys.

Dr Marc Danzon, WHO's regional director for Europe, said: "We see evidence of a hazardous harmonisation in tobacco consumption by 15 to 18-year-olds at around 30 per cent. It signals a very worrisome development and we have to be aware of the harm to health."

WHO warned that big tobacco companies were "on the defensive" after documents of "over 50 years of manipulating science, politics and the mass media in the pursuit of profit" had been made public.

Dr Roberton Bertollini of WHO said: "The industry is stepping up its efforts to re- engineer itself, expand its markets, recruit new smokers and promote the social acceptability of smoking."

Among adults, smoking levels are also higher in the east of the region. In 11 countries, including Belarus, Romania, the Russian Federation and Ukraine, half of all men smoke. This compares with rates of below 30 per cent in some western nations including Finland, Slovenia, Sweden and the UK.

About 25 per cent of women in western nations smoke regularly compared with 20 per cent in the east. But the WHO report says death rates among women are still increasing.

Professor Richard Peto, a cancer specialist at the Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, will tell the conference that tobacco caused 100 million deaths in the 20th century and, if smoking trends continue, it could kill a billion people in this one.

In another presentation, Joy Townsend, a visiting professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, will say that smoking results in 1.3 million deaths each year across Europe, with each person losing, on average, 20 years of life.