Plain English Summary
Most adult smokers first tried smoking when they were under 18. A smoker who started young is even more likely than a smoker who started at an older age to become ill or die from it.
About 400,000 11- to 15-year-olds in England have tried smoking at some point and about 100,000 smoke now. More than three 15-year-olds out of one hundred smokes more than once a week.
Children with parents who smoke are about three times more likely to start smoking themselves. Children are also more likely to smoke if they have brothers, sisters or friends who smoke.
The chance of an 11- to 15-year-old being a smoker has halved in the past ten years. This change is partly because of new laws:
- Shops can only sell tobacco to adults over 18 (used to be 16)
- The power to stop shopkeepers from selling tobacco at all if they keep selling it to children
- Not allowing cigarettes to be on display in shops
- Cigarettes only being sold in plain packets
