Researchers at the Menzies Research Institute have reignited public discussions about childhood smoking in the lead up to World No Tobacco Day this Saturday 31 May.

Researchers at the Menzies Research Institute have reignited public discussions about childhood smoking in the lead up to World No Tobacco Day this Saturday 31 May.

Published recently in the prestigious monthly international peer-reviewed journal, Addiction, the Menzies' research suggests that any childhood smoking experimentation increases the risk of being a daily smoker 20 years later.

First author of the paper and Junior Research Fellow at the Menzies Research Institute, Dr Seana Paul, says the findings show that childhood smoking experimentation in 1985, even if it was just having a few puffs of a cigarette as a child, increased the risk of being a regular smoker 20 years later between two to three fold.

"We also found that children who smoked more than 10 cigarettes 20 years ago were up to six times more likely to be a smoker today," Dr Paul said.

Dr Paul says many people within our society assume that early smoking experimentation increases the risk of adult smoking.

"But our study is one of the first to support this argument from a prospective study or one that presented longitudinal evidence," she said.

A secondary finding from the study demonstrates that parental smoking increases the risk of current smoking 20 years later.

Dr Paul says whilst the risk was less than that associated with smoking experimentation, it shows that those children who had a parent who smoked in 1985 were between 30 percent and 90 percent more likely to be a regular smoker 20 years later.

"Another way of looking at this result is that around one-fifth of current adult smoking could be prevented if we eliminated parental smoking," Dr Paul said.

In 2008 the World Health Organization's World No Tobacco Day focuses on Tobacco Free Youth.

Dr Paul says that as tobacco is the third greatest cause of death around the world, politicians and policy makers here in Australia must focus on ways of eradicating smoking in our society altogether.

"I believe that for smoking to be eradicated, we as a community must 'de-normalise' smoking, this includes limiting its presence in movies and TV, continuing our move towards totally smoke free public areas and, importantly, helping smokers quit," Dr Paul said.

Director of QUIT Tasmania, Michael Wilson says preventing adolescents from becoming regular users of tobacco is an important goal for Quit Tasmania.

"A public health survey in 2003 stated more than 90 per cent of our adult clients who smoked wish they never started.  Quit Tasmania's Smarter Than Smoking program continues to develop a range of activities that support teachers, parents and children to gain the information, skills and attitudes that will enable them to be non-smokers.

"It's saddening to note, yet also encouraging, that we get some phone calls from children asking if we can send their parent a Quit Pack, therefore hopefully our youth are fearful of the effects of smoking," Mr Wilson said.

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