Cologne, Germany - Smoking among German schoolchildren has sagged to its lowest level in the nearly three decades since surveys began, a government health agency said Wednesday in Cologne. Currently, 18 per cent of Germans aged 12 to 17 smoked, the Germany health education agency said in a briefing in Cologne for No Tobacco Day on Thursday. Back in 2001 the proportion was 28 per cent. The German surveys began in 1979.
Pollsters also found the tally of young people who had never even tried smoking was well up, at 57 per cent. Six years ago, only 41 per cent of young Germans said they had never used tobacco.
