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.