CHILD SMOKERS

Sir: The article "A fag-end of a job" (Review, 9
October), concerning John Carlisle (a spokesman
for the UK tobacco industry) would be amusing
were it not that he is defending an industry whose
survival over the longer term is due only to the
gullibility of children. How many of us can name
even one person who has taken up smoking, for
the first time while in their adult years?

In response to his claim that smoking is not addictive, he might like
to ponder upon the size of the market for aids to help people quit
this "habit", as he puts it.

The tobacco industry has, for far too long, hidden behind the myth
that adults take up smoking of their own free will, and they are
therefore victims of their own gullibility. It is children who keep
this industry alive. Once they are old enough and wise enough to
realise how daft they've been, it is of course far too late for most
of them; they're hooked.

Ron P Levy, Rayleigh, Essex

Checked-by: Patrick Henry