By Grant Smith, education reporter

THE ANTI-SMOKING message should be targeted at pupils as soon as they start primary school or even before, a Dundee City Council project worker has suggested.

Christine Greig, part of the peer education project, was responding to a national consultation by the Scottish Executive on its “towards a future without tobacco” report.

Ministers are considering options to cut tobacco sales, with a particular emphasis on young people. A main change is expected to be raising the minimum age for buying cigarettes from 16 to 18.

Dundee City Council has already endorsed that proposal, as have many other local authorities and health boards.

In her letter to the Executive— just released along with the other consultation responses—Ms Greig explained that the peer education project was set up six years ago and initially dealt with drug and alcohol education.

It involves pupils being trained in passing on advice and information to other children. The idea is that young people might be more inclined to take heed of someone of a similar age rather than adults.

Ms Greig said, “Over the past two years or so we have been developing and implementing a smoking prevention strategy for use within certain schools in Dundee.

“Adhering to council guidelines, smoking prevention lessons do not begin in primary school until P5. Given the apparent success of such schemes as introducing dental hygiene at nursery level, I believe the current, necessary aims of ‘towards a future without tobacco’ would only be enhanced if the subject were introduced to the school curriculum at an earlier stage.

“Aware it is a sensitive issue, I can see no reason that creative and imaginative methods could not be adopted with pre-school pupils and within the lower primaries to convey the messages around smoking within the context of a living a healthy lifestyle,” she said.

The city council’s official response to the consultation also said that the way young people perceive smoking needs to be tapped into and addressed, possibly using computer technology to get the message across.

It explained, “In Dundee, young people were recently consulted on ways of impacting on smoking behaviour. The intervention rated highest was age progression software showing the facial effects of long-term smoking.

“There should also be greater recognition of peer-led approaches for young people. In Dundee, an on-going peer education project involving S2 pupils and primary pupils is an example of effective practice flourishing in schools throughout the city.”

Paul Ballard, deputy director of public health at NHS Tayside, said the health board would “continue to strongly support” peer education and the health promoting schools initiative.

He said, “We will also continue to ensure that the focus of our work is driven by the needs of young people, with an emphasis on tackling health inequalities.”

Mary Cuthbert, head of the Executive’s tobacco policy branch, said, “We will be taking a fundamental look at drugs education in schools —which of course embraces tobacco—including the types of intervention and at which point in the school journey they should be.

“However, at this stage how this will be done and the timetables are unclear, although the responses to the smoking prevention consultation will feed into that process.”