Young people are the primary target group for the tobacco industry. The industry calls them the ‘replacement smokers’, who fill in for the smokers who died from their habit. Almost all smokers start smoking between the ages of 10 and 19. Young people who start smoking during this vulnerable period of their lives often become much more severely addicted than those who start later. That is why it is so important to protect young people from the temptations of the tobacco industry.

Youth Smoking Prevention has one clear goal: banish tobacco from society and make smoking history. The only way to do this is to stop new smokers coming onto the scene. For this reason, Youth Smoking Prevention would like to encourage the government to implement a number of measures that, when combined, will result in an effective prevention policy.

Youth Smoking Prevention grew out of the work of pulmonologists Pauline Dekker and Wanda de Kanter, authors of the book Nederland stopt! Met Roken.
They wrote the book out of frustration about the fact that as lung doctors they are always at the end of the line: 80 percent of their daily work in the hospital consists of caring for patients with COPD or lung cancer. Diseases that cannot be cured, but can be prevented.

Youth Smoking Prevention is an independent foundation that aims to make smoking a thing of the past.

Contact Youth Smoking Prevention