Stop teens from smoking

ICAUGHT two boys, hardly 14 years old, smoking at a mamak restaurant last Tuesday afternoon and, to their surprise, sat at their table. I asked them whose money they were using to buy the cigarettes.

They just looked at each other, kept quiet but still held their cigarettes.

Then I started to lecture them on how their parents had slogged to make ends meet and here they were burning away the money.

One of them blurted out: “We used money we saved.”

I said: “Who gave you the money to save? Even if you had saved it, is it not better to spend some on your schooling and part of it on a present for your mother?”

One of the boys retorted: “Bukan urusan pakcik (Not your business).”

They left hurriedly and I told the man at the counter I would pay for their drinks, but not before chiding him for selling the cigarettes to the under-18 boys.

Some years back, I found that a sundry shop near a secondary school was selling cigarettes to schoolboys. I reminded the shopowner it was an offence and then I reported the matter to the school authorities and the parentteacher association.

At an ensuing PTA meeting, a parent said the school cannot merely depend on parents to watch over the students’ conduct as the boys and girls spend a lot of time in school and away from parental supervision.

On hearing this, I asked the parents if the students had not come to school direct from their homes. I said the parents should be the ones who have to first make sure their child or children left home wellprepared for studies.

This would include wearing their uniforms the proper way and not shoddily and carrying in their school bags things that matter, definitely no cigarette packs.

On one occasion, I saw a schoolbag carried by a schoolgirl falling off her shoulders and among the things that spilled out was a packet of condoms! I took the matter straight to the school principal.

Politicians, social activists and educators talk so much about school discipline declining but that’s all they do – talk and get their statements carried in the media and bathe in their own glory.

Enough talk. If we all need to play our role, let’s get cracking. Start from the home, carry our responsibility to coffeeshops, malls, bus stands, the streets and anywhere youths gather. If we see a child smoking or behaving in an unsavoury way, stop him.

Can we do it? Afraid? Well, if you just want to talk, then just be a champion in parliament or a public forum and don’t expect people to take you seriously when you talk about juvenile deliquency. BRAIN SHARE Puchong, Selangor