Alberta teens buck national anti-smoking trend
Survey shows increase of more than 10,000 youth lighting up in 2010
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Albertans bucked the trend in the 20,000-respondent survey, with the number of smokers growing nearly a full per cent to a total of 560,000.
But a 4.5-per-cent increase in Alberta’s teen smokers particularly caught the eye of Les Hagen, spokesman for Action on Smoking and Health, a not-for-profit society advocating for anti-smoking measures.
The increase — from 12.4 per cent in 2009 to 16.9 in 2010 — means the number of Albertan teen smokers jumped from just under 30,000 to just over 40,000.
The number of Albertan teens who have never been smokers dropped from 84.5 to 81.7 per cent, while the average number of cigarettes they smoked per day jumped from 13.9 to 14.9.
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Youth aren’t the only ones taking up tobacco. An estimated 36,000 smokers were added to Alberta’s total in 2010, a jump to 18.8 from 18.0 per cent. Males led the way with an increase from 20.1 to 21.6 per cent, while females nudged up from 15.9 per cent to 16.0 per cent.
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