RM November 30 - Teens and smoking

THE news that teenagers are spending on average €40 a week on cigarettes is surely a shock for many parents. But the most alarming statistic for me was the fact that 90 per cent of young people are not asked for ID when they buy cigarettes from a shop.

What is going there? Are shops turning a blind eye and putting profit before their legal and moral duties?

The survey was carried out by the Office of Tobacco Control and should signal a serious clamp down on shops purveying cigarettes to young people with no thought to the damage they are doing.

And lets be honest the law on the legal age for buying cigarettes is there to protect young people from themselves as much as anything.

The full force of the law should be thrown at shops who make no effort to ascertain the age of the young person buying cigarettes. In fact the Gardai should organise a sting operation by recruiting young people to attempt to buy cigarettes and if they are not asked for ID and are underage, then the shop should be prosecuted with heavy fines.

A couple of such operations would send out a clear message.

Of course those young people determined to smoke can use the age-old method of asking someone older to buy cigarettes for them.

There isn’t much we can do about that, I can only hope that as many people refuse point blank as will oblige.

Not long ago I was in Liffey Valley and at the time I had my own dealings with young people and smoking when I caught the Young Wan experimenting.

Having big discussions, punishments at home with her over this I was dismayed by her ability to buy cigarettes.

So when a boy of about 10 or 11 years old (maybe he was older and his growth was stunted by smoking) approached me in the shopping centre and asked me to buy him some, he got the most withering look from me before I told him in no uncertain terms there was no way I would buy him cigarettes.

I have threatened herself with putting posters of herself around the area where we live telling people she is only 14 and not to buy her cigarettes. I have also threatened to march her to all the shops around us and inform them she is 14 and if they sell her cigarettes I will call the Gardai.
You would think the embarrassment of your ma bringing you into a shop, parading you to all the staff while saying ‘this child is 14, a child, do not sell her cigarettes’.

Apparently she won’t do it again but until I trust her there will be no pocket money. I cannot allow her to reach her early 20s and to have been smoking for nearly a decade, it is a repulsive thought.

I sincerely wish my efforts as a parent were backed up properly by the laws that are in place to prevent her smoking and I wish those eejits who think it is okay to buy a child cigarettes would stop.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column young wan