PARENTS SMOKING LINK TO DRUG USE

Parents who smoke could influence their children towards future drug use,
the Federal Government's drug advisory body said yesterday.

National Council on Drugs member Wayne Hall said the council was looking at
the enticements for young people to take up using illicit drugs and
research had found parental smoking could be a factor.

Another member, Major Brian Watters, said that although he didn't want to
blame parents who smoked or make them feel guilty, there was a correlation
between smoking in the home and drug-taking behaviours of children - legal
and illegal.

"Parents need to be aware of the fact that their own drug use, legal drug
use, can influence children's attitudes towards drugs as a way of
responding to problems and tension and stress," Maj Watters said.

"It is too easy for those kids to be influenced to use the illicit drugs.

"There is some research that shows that children who begin to use alcohol
and tobacco in their early teens are represented in the drug-using
population seven times more than those who don't."

The home was the most important education institution for children and
Major Watters said there was a natural tendency for young people to follow
their parents and imitate their actions.

"Parents are their role models," he said.

"If they're seeing cigarette smoking demonstrated as a normal way of
living, and certainly as a way of coping when the pressure is on, there is
a message there and parents need to be aware of that."

Tobacco was the largest gateway drug in Australia.

"It is a mood altering, mind altering introduction to most things for
children," he said.

"Almost 100 per cent of the people I deal with who are addicted to drugs
were early smokers.

"It is almost unheard of for a person to be using illicit drugs who hasn't
been or is not a smoker."