LetsTravelRome

Today in Italy.

Special service by AGI on behalf of the Italian Prime Minister's office

SMOKING: 37 PCT OF PARENTS AWARE TEENAGE CHILD SMOKES
(AGI) - Rome, May 4 - Thirty-seven percent of Italian parents know that their adolescent child smokes. But only 3 parents out of ten manage to get them to stop, 1 out of 10 simply become resigned to the fact. This is the picture of the vice of smoking which is given by MOIGE (Italian Parents' Association) and a survey conducted by SWG of Trieste from 5,000 parents with children between 11 and17 and 400 tobacco shops all across Italy. According to the survey, 47 pct of parents who smoke pay for their children's purchases in tobacco shops. But almost all of them know that it is illegal for cigarettes to be bought by or sold to children under age 16. In order to fight this phenomenon MOIGE and tobacco shops are launching (starting today) an awareness campaign to inform adults about the risks of smoking for children and the laws in force concerning them. The campaign - presented today in Rome with the slogan "We mustn't smoke. Both the law and good sense tell us this" - will travel on a bus with 40 stops across the Italian peninsula and will bring an educational message the cities that the bus will stop in include: Rome, Cagliari, Palermo, Catanzaro, Potenza, Bari, Naples, Campobasso, Pescara, Ancona, Bologna, Verona, Udine, Trento, Segrate, Como, Aosta, Turin, Genoa, Siena, Florence and Viterbo. But the Federation of Tobacco Shop Owners has announced another important initiative to discourage smoking among minors. It will be possible to purchase cigarettes from automatic vendors only after having introduced a particular card with a chip containing personal details and which will be distributed only to those over 16. "There is a need for information on the law", said Maria Rita Munizzi, president of MOIGE, "and a cultural operation to inform parents not only on the dangers of smoking but also on the existence of the law and respect for it. An alliance has therefore been made between parents and tobacco shop owners in order to keep children away form smoking". Cigarettes mean transgression for adolescents. "At the beginning there is the desire to emulate adults and to feel as if they were adults", said Federico Bianchi Di Castelbianco, psycho-therapist of adolescence and director of the institute of speech therapists of Rome, "also because at that age it is necessary to feel part of a group. Society also makes frequent use of the myth of macho figures with a cigarette dangling from their lips and of the 'femme fatal'. And smoking is forbidden and so it is even more fascinating. It is necessary to show an adolescent what the dangers of smoking are, because sometimes words aren't enough". Bianchi Di Castelbianco ends off with advice to parents: "Set a good example". (AGI) -
041205 MAG 06

posted by Les Sheppard @ 9:54 AM