Smoking prevalence among young people in Papua New Guinea.

This study done was done during the 1996/1997-school break in NCD and Manus. There were total of 2000 and 1000 young people were interviewed respectively from NCD and Manus. From the 1150 males and 850 females interviewed in NCD, 115(10%) males and 315(37%) females were non-smokers. There were 138(12%) males and 68(8%) females smoked cigarettes. There were 150(13%) males and 84(10%) females smoked marijuana. Those who smoked marijuana also smoked cigarettes and mutrus. Even though there was higher rate of smokers among males, there is a high rate among female smokers in NCD. There were 163(10%) and 63(7%) smokers for the age group 8-10 yrs in NCD and Manus respectively. For the age group 11-12 there were 186(12%) in NCD and 91(11%) in Manus. In NCD there were 257(16%) smokers and 107(13%) in Manus in the age group of 13-14 yrs. There were 281(18%) and 153(18%) smokers in the age group 15-16 yrs in NCD and Manus respectively. There were 157(37%) of non-smokers in NCD and 28(18%) in Manus did not smoke because of they were told by their teachers on the dangers of tobacco and marijuana smoking. The effort by health workers on health messages on the dangers of smoking tobacco and marijuana did influence 72(17%) non-smokers in NCD and 56(36%) in Manus on young people. Parents and teachers have full responsibility of ensuring that messages on the dangers of tobacco and marijuana smoking aregiven to the young people. Aggressive promotion of cigarette products has influenced smoking and should be stopped.