There are reports from Papua New Guinea that up to 85 percent of school aged children, some as young as ten, smoke tobacco and marijuana.
The Post Courier newspaper reports that the PNG National Heart Foundation and other health groups have revealed these figures while calling on the Government to increase funding for quit smoking programmes.
They have urged the Government to take preventive measures before it is too late.
The paper reports the Foundaton Director, David Guinn, saying that some political leaders have become complacent about tobacco, limiting funding, but thousands of school children take up smoking every year.
