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There is a lot of concern about smoking and many professionals from scientists to health workers say that it can seriously harm people's health.

Following the concerns of the professionals and the public, the government in the UK has banned most forms of tobacco advertising and has introduced the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2003 but smoking is not illegal and anyone at any age could smoke. These are some of the things that the law says:

• It is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 16
• It is illegal for young people under 16 years of age to buy cigarettes from vending machines
• Notices warning that it is illegal to sell tobacco to under16s must be displayed wherever they are sold and on vending machines
• It is the shop keeper's legal responsibity to make sure that they don't sell cigarettes to under 16s.
• It is illegal to smoke on public transports at any age
• Tobacco companies cannot advertise on the print media or billboards
• Cigarette cannot be advertised on television

This project is about finding out the facts about tobacco and smoking so that you can discuss what the rules and the law should be and why. This project involves researching a lot of information. You need to have access to the Internet and also contact different organisations (see project 19) which can provide useful statistics.

These are some of the topics you could look into:

• When was tobacco first introduced to Europe?
• The use of tobacco in Britain
• The medicinal and ceremonial use of tobacco amongst different cultures
• The first arguments about the health effects of tobacco
• What did doctors and scientists think about the effects of smoking on the human body?
• Why has the government prohibited cigarette advertising in most places?
• Who smokes (boys/girls/teenagers/older people)? And how much
• Illness and smoking: cancer/respiratory diseases/ heart and circulation/sex and reproduction/passive smoking
• Nicotine and addiction
• The tobacco industry
• The spreading of tobacco smoking in the developing world and its consequences
• Tobacco and the environment

Now you have collected all this information what do you think are the reasons for and against changing the law?

Resources

Here are a selection of websites that may help with your project. Please remember that DrugScope/D-World cannot be held responsible for the content of other sites.

Smoke-free law 'would save lives' BBC News story discussing the idea for an outright ban on public smoking.

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