results from our survey

reasons for
starting to smoke

reasons for deciding
not to smoke
  best options to prevent
youth from smoking
other facts
Studies suggest that peers teaching peers is the optimal way to prevent smoking among adolescents.
Peer education uses same age or same background educators to convey educational messages to a target group. Peer educators work by endorsing “healthy” norms, beliefs and behaviours within their own peer group or “community”, and challenging those which are “unhealthy”.

(United Nations Office For Drug Control And Crime Prevention, 2000)
In Nova Scotia the average age for first smoking a whole cigarette is 12.7 years.
3/4 of the adult Mi’kmaq population in Nova Scotia report having used tobacco in non-traditional ways.
It is estimated that between one-third and two-thirds of adolescents who try even as few as two cigarettes go on to become regular smokers.
52% of Mi'kmaq mothers in Nova Scotia have smoked during pregnancy... Four times the rate in Canada as a whole.
 
   
 
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