Ash you like it

King James VI, in his Counterblaste To Tobacco in 1604, wrote that smoking was: “A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.” His words are still relevant in the early 21st century but despite the horrible smell and taste of tobacco smoke, as well as the associated health risks, an average of 36 children each day are taking up smoking (your report, 8 February).

During my schooldays in the 1970s and early 1980s, there were frequent anti-smoking ads on television and every cigarette packet carried what was described as “a government health warning”. Nevertheless, at my primary school in

Bearsden some pupils started smoking at nine. At Bearsden Academy pupils would openly smoke during break times in the playground. They knew full well that smoking was damaging to health, it cost money and they shouldn’t be doing it, but nevertheless they did it. It was noteworthy that the smokers were always among the school’s significant ned element.

The reason children take up smoking, now as then, is because they see it as a form of defying authority, flying in the face of indisputable medical evidence and changing social norms. No amount of futile preaching about lung cancer and heart attacks will stop them; in fact; the more they are preached at, the more they will smoke. If they want to waste money on cigarettes and learn the hard way about the harm they are doing to their health, that’s their choice.

ROBERT KELLY

Bonhill Road, Dumbarton