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We know that anyone who has a pair of lungs can get local authorities with insufficient resources to sustain
lung cancer.We also know that a major obstacle to existing health promotion and quit support services or
raising awareness of the disease, and to raising funds to to adapt to changing conditions.
tackle it, lies in the all-too-common stigma surrounding
the links between lung cancer and smoking. “ Young people may feel

Yet no matter how we try to address these prejudices, themselves to be ‘immortal’ or
the fact remains that smoking can and does cause lung impervious to the effects of
cancer. In fact, smoking tobacco remains the leading cause smoking, but, sadly,
of preventable death and ill-health in the UK and 85% of
all lung cancer diagnoses are related to it. ”the effects can reveal

At Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation we don’t blame themselves decades later.
the individual smoker - we lay the blame squarely with
the tobacco manufacturers.The cruel truth is that, in The government’s new smoking prevention strategy is
many cases, the habit takes a grip when the smoker is still now overdue - it has not been updated since 2010. So
a child or not much more. we decided the time was ripe to commission an in-depth
study, examining how smoking impacts on youngsters in
Although the uptake of smoking in the UK has fallen the early 21st century.
dramatically in recent years, an estimated 207,000 young Our report,‘New Issues and Age-Old Challenges:A
people under 15 start smoking each year and between Review of Young People’s Relationship with Tobacco’, was
one-third and half of them will go on to become launched in February at our London headquarters.
established smokers, according to figures compiled by
ASH (Action on Smoking and Health) in 2015.

Peer pressure has always played a key role in influencing
the behaviour and choices of young people. Nowadays,
social media and online activity massively increase that
peer pressure, and together with the desire to appear
‘fashionable’ or to stay thin, can combine to make
smoking seem attractive.

Young people may feel themselves to be ‘immortal’ or
impervious to the effects of smoking but, sadly, those
effects can reveal themselves decades later.

Smoking-related health issues are estimated to cost the
NHS £5.2 billion per year.Adding to the problem, funding
cuts to public health budgets have left both the NHS and

8 Inspire 2017