Article Written by Shafquat Rozi and Saeed Akhtar

• In an article written by Shafquat rozi and Saeed Akhtar , professors at Agha Khan University, Karachi (2004), it has been mentioned that tobacco and smoking is one of the major factors that lead to and cause deaths among individual, primarily for the reason that most smokers and tobacco users started their activity at young ages. These individual have been reported to have developed habits early in their lives, due to many factors, domestic and foreign alike. Most of these individuals started smoking at young ages. A study was conducted to observe these developments among young individuals by selecting students from public and private institutions of secondary level from the areas of inner Karachi. These studies showed results depicting the ages that these students began smoking as well as the reason that had forced or indirectly affected their judgment to begin an activity that would harm and shorten their life spans. Most kids began smoking at the age of 13 and most adolescent smokers were students of the public sector. These students have had multiple reasons for starting tobacco usage and smoking. Some influenced by peer pressure, others having the psychological relaxation as a seller for their addiction. It had been observed that majority who had smokers in the family, began smoking themselves, which is an influential factor in their smoking patterns. Others had been influenced by the advertisements and the mere entertainment and leisure of this habit influenced their addiction. Since in developing countries like Pakistan the smoking laws aren’t enforced, this results in excessive selling of tobacco to minors.