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Every year, thousands of young people under the age of 20 start to smoke. An addiction that can be avoided. Some municipalities have decided to act.
It has become a usual scene in France: on the sidewalks, in front of middle and high schools, students have a cigarette in their hand or in their mouth. Almost 20% of them are regular smokers and they don’t plan to quit now. “I know I’m not gonna stop now, cause I don’t wanna, it’s not gonna work anyway“Says one smoker. Of the nearly 200,000 new users among young people, nearly two-thirds of them will continue to smoke in the long term.
As Dr Damien Mascret, doctor and journalist at France Télévisions reminds us, before the age of 20, “this is the time when we are going to be the most vulnerable to become addicted to tobacco. If we are past 20, there is very little chance that we will become addicted“. For some tobacco specialists, it would be necessary to install a perimeter”tobacco free“in front of schools. A measure already applied in the town of Doubs, in Burgundy-Franche-Comté, near schools and sports establishments.