Spoiling the combustible younger generation
of a country, you spoil the entire country. So, the teen age smoking
needs to be curbed, in the overall interests. Some tangible steps need
to be taken for implementing the quit smoking campaign.
Here is a list of steps that need to be taken immediately to put
an end to teen age smoking:
1) Non-smoker teens should be encouraged to form groups and initiate anti smoking campaigns in schools
and colleges. Short documentaries need to be shown as to what smoking
can do for damaging their health.
2) Teenagers should be taken on
an educational tour. They should be made to visit some of the cancer
wards of hospitals. The suffering of the cancer patients (the former
tobacco addicts) will have a salutary effect on them.
3) The
Subject, ?Nicotine? should be a full length chapter in the school
syllabus. Its ill-effects should be periodically discussed in the
college level debating competitions.
4) Teens themselves should
take the lead in exposing the double-faceted approach of the government
to tobacco addiction. For example, they can raise the issue that on the
one hand tobacco manufacturers are made to declare that cigarette
smoking is injurious to the health. On the other hand, there is no curb
on the issuance of number of licenses to the tobacco product
manufacturers.
5) The non-governmental organizations must take the
lead in saving the younger generation from going to the ruins. Mere
distribution of handbills and pasting of wall posters and putting across
giant roadside hoardings is not going to bring the desired results.
6) All
parents should check their smoking habit, for they play a major role in
putting their kids in the peril of smoking. As father, as son.
Especially when it comes to addictions! If the mother too smokes, the
child is twice-blessed. The kid can steal cigarettes from two packets.
Two sources of supply!
7) The punishments to the teen smokers
should be trend-setting. If you wish to implement an important law
concerning stop smoking among the teens, it should be implemented with
sincerity and strictness.
I have one last advice for all the
teens: do not tighten the smoking noose, it is in your own neck!
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