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14 Percent Of World Youth
Smoke Survey Finds

By Elizabeth Lazarowitz
8-29-2

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fourteen percent of teens aged 13 to 15 smoke worldwide, but two-thirds of them want to quit, a survey released on Wednesday finds.
 
A quarter of all kids who smoke started by the age of 10, the report, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the National Cancer Institute, the World Health Organization and the Canadian Public Health Association found.
 
The Global Youth Tobacco Survey of 13- to 15-year-olds at 75 sites in 43 different countries, the West Bank and Gaza Strip found that developing countries have the highest rates of teen smokers.
 
More than one-third of the students surveyed in Chile, Russia, Ukraine and Northern Mariana Islands said they were current smokers.
 
The survey, published on the Internet at http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/global/GYTS.htm, found 17.7 percent of the U.S. teens questioned smoke, but 55.8 percent of them said they wanted to quit.
 
"Overall, 68.4 percent of students indicated that they wanted to quit smoking immediately," the CDC, whose report is published in the September issue of the journal Tobacco Control, said in a statement.
 
"Of major concern is the fact that so many young people around the world are exposed to cigarette smoking in their homes and in public places. Nearly half the students reported that they were exposed to second-hand smoke from others in their home," the statement added.
 
"Overall, 60 percent of students were exposed to second-hand smoke in public areas."
 
A second study published in the same journal found that second-hand smoke raises the risk of heart disease by 47 percent.
 
And a third study in the same issue found that it takes only a few weeks or months of smoking for a teenager to become addicted. Overall, 40 percent of teens who try even a few cigarettes become addicted, it found.
 
The World Health Organization says 10 million people are expected to die each year from smoking-related illnesses by the year 2030, with 70 percent of these deaths in developing countries.
 
 
Copyright © 2002 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.





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