Developing and implementing actions and enforcement measures to deter young people from starting to smoke, such as setting and enforcing age limits for purchasing tobacco products. Promoting education in schools about tobacco addiction and its effect on health, by making education on tobacco a required part of the school curriculum.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control, environmental tobacco smoke remains a major public health concern since more than half of American youth continue to be exposed to this known human carcinogen.
By 1999, children and adolescents could not smoke in public before the age of 16 in Germany and in 7 of the 9 provinces of Austria. In Luxembourg, the use of tobacco was banned in schools as well as other premises frequented by youngsters under the age of 16.