The Smoke Free Class Competition is a school-based smoking prevention campaign targeted at 11-14 year olds. Part funded by EU it operates in 19+ countries. The essential idea is that classes that remain non-smoking for 6 months can claim prizes (often travel vouchers). The session split the audience into those enthusiastic (passionate) to continue and others who doubted the efficacy of the initiative (even suggesting that peer pressure may result in bullying)
A report of a randomised control trial was, at best, inconclusive but at least showed that bullying was not very common.
However, the most controversial contribution came when it was made clear the tobacco industry was prepared to offer money to support this type of project in Russia. This idea was rejected from the panel but did I detect a willingness to accept the funds? I have always thought that if the tobacco industry is `for`something then the TC community would be `against`.
Overall, it seemed to me that many countries were happy to carry on with a vast initiative that showed minor or no positive effects over the short term and it was acknowledged that anything on this scale would not be expected to have any effect over the long term (So why bother?) The idea of a more targeted approach for those classes that were unable to remain smoke free was encouraging and the only way I could justify the effort.
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