A thought-provoking new hidden camera video (see it below) shows two girls, one nine and the other ten years old, approaching random smokers on the square outside of the main train station in Aarhus and asking for either a light or a cigarette. In the video, which was produced by the grassroots organisation You Me Family, nine out of ten of the people approached either gave the child a light or gave them a smoke.
Jonathan Løw, the spokesman for You Me Family, said he was surprised by the results.
"I had not imagined that we would get those numbers," he said. "I would have predicted 30-40 percent."
Løw said that the girls approached 92 people who were standing with either a lighter or a cigarette and asked if they could have a light or a cigarette. Every response was recorded using a hidden camera. Løw warned against viewing the video as any type of accurate poll.
"It is not statistically accurate,” he said. “We asked only one person at a time, and we contacted only smokers. The idea of ??the video was to start the debate.”
Løw said he would have released the video even if no one had offered the girls a light.
In 2010, nearly 11 percent of 15-year-olds said they smoked daily. The government expressed concern that the habit is growing among the very young.
And young people with socially inferior conditions start smoking earlier and smoke more than their peers, according to a study by the National Institute of Public Health.
The health minister, Astrid Krag (Socialistisk Folkeparti) has urged schools and councils to seek some of the 16 million kroner in funds available until 2015 for projects aimed at curbing smoking among children.
