You should live here steffijade,I've had kids aged 4(I know because their parents live on the same street)ask me for a light,for the roll-up they'd created from gathering fag-ends along the cycle path(I wondered what it was they were picking up as I approached and was slightly taken aback to see his mate clutching several fag ends)I refused and pointed out they were way to young to be smoking,to get told "my mam knows I smoke" (that information didn't surprise me in the least as his mam is well known by all & the police/social services/oiks/yobs/& their dogs)The infants school/junior schools are close-by & I hate having to go in/out of town past them when I'm on foot,as (I'm no prude) their language is f's & b's referring to everyone from police/teachers/other parents to the kids themselves.It's no wonder the kids are so ill-mannered so n so's.
I know what you mean.. I was dragged up on a council estate in Sheffield in the 70s/early 80s and there were a few families with a bit of a reputation.
If we as a society want to see an end to tobacco smoking, I'm of the opinion that the responsibility for educating kids and steering them away from tobacco should lie with the parents in the main. Of course, once kids reach a certain age they'll make up their own minds what they're going to do and parental influence can be less effective and if a kid chooses to smoke, then they're gonna do it whatever their parents say.
'Big government' and those that act with the government's approval have a lot to answer for in this respect if you ask me. Despite throwing millions at the prevention of smoking uptake and smoking cessation, we still have a sizeable proportion of the population that smokes tobacco.
Rather than allowing charity status to tobacco control groups and allowing them to saturate the media with guilt tripping ads, the government should stop being hypocrites and just ban combustible tobacco smoking and the sale of cigarettes/tobacco if they're really serious about making the country smoke free.
They won't do so though, because it would cost them billions in revenue and they insist that people should be free to choose for themselves if they smoke or not.
The hypocrisy of that situation is staggering really. We're free to choose to smoke, as long as we're prepared to line the pockets of Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and Big Government and put up with being vilified/demonised/emotionally blackmailed by the anti smoking lobby, who are also part of a multi million pound industry that professes to care about public health but apparently seems to be actually more concerned with the preservation of their own particular carriage of the gravy train.
That's why I don't trust them, view 99% of their actions with suspicion and don't buy in to the 'isn't this a great ad' bit.. I tend to look at the broader picture and see the cynicism behind their emotive ad campaigns.
Now I've got that off me chest, I'm gonna go stand in front of a mirror and practice me Grinch impression.
Question: If advertising of cigarettes is banned, why are the anti's etc, allowed to show people smoking tobacco cigarettes in their anti-smoking ad's. It's still a form of advertising, you still see people smoking in most of them. 
