GERMANY: Parents and paediatricians in Hamburg are calling for an immediate ban on smoking in schools after an EU study revealed the extent of the current smoking “epidemic” among German teenagers. However, they are a lone voice in a country where smoking for over-16s is allowed in most schools. Little wonder then that German schoolchildren have come top at smoking in the study by the EU Commission on almost 11,000 15-year-olds. Although it is illegal to sell cigarettes to under-16s, almost a quarter of German 15-year-olds polled by the EU lit up daily, and 70 per cent had “tried a cigarette or two”.

Yojana Sharma

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