Northeasterners Topping Thai Smoking Charts

[george]

Ubon health official sees Northeasterners topping Thai smoking charts

UBON RATCHATHANI: -- More people in Thailand's Northeastern region smoke cigarettes than in other regions, according to Dr. Somsak Akkasilp, head of Disease Prevention and Control in Ubon Ratchathani province.

Dr. Somsak cited the Disease Control Department's 2004 statistics suggesting that over 27 per cent the population aged 15 and over in Ubon, one of 19 Northeastern provinces, smoke cigarettes, and the numbers show similar proportions in other provinces in the region.

The major causes of rising smoking rates in a young generation are various such as their curiosity for trial, imitating peers in social situations, as well as following older family members' behaviours as they provide negative role-models, the doctor said.

The Disease Control Office in Ubon Ratchathani oversees eight provinces in the lower Northeast and is now launching campaigns to reduce the smoking rates at work places, clinics and hospitals, he added.

Concerned that young men and women who take up smoking may become bad examples for their peers, Dr. Somsak suggested that agencies from both state and private sectors should provide "special spaces" for

youngsters who have acquired the habit to express their behaviour under close watch and control so that the young smokers would not use cigarettes as 'a social tool to make new friends' and for further

socialising.

--TNA 2005-11-29