Not everybody reckons it is a good idea

Anti-smoking campaigners in Essex are taking the challenge of getting people to quit smoking extremely seriously. The Colchester and Tendring National Health Service Stop Smoking Service will be targeting nurseries where there are children as young as three and warning them to stay away from cigarettes. By using special dolls which show how the lungs of smokers get damaged the anti smoking campaigners hope to get the message across at an early age.

They will also be giving the children leaflets and questionnaires so that they can hand them to their parents when they get home. The idea is to educate the kids and also get the message across to parents that they should not smoke near their children and they should try and give up.

Not everybody reckons it is a good idea and some people said that young children should not be given these scary messages warning them about the health of their parents when they are this young. The Conservative Member of Parliament for Harwich and Clacton, Mr. Douglas Carswell called this campaign "a sinister attempt" by government to terrify tiny children into hassling their parents to give up smoking. He also said that the National Health Service should not spend public money "intruding into the private relations" between parents and their pre school children.

On the other hand there will be those that say that the end justifies the means and that if parents are shamed by their young children into quitting then a good thing would have been done. The Tendring NHS Stop Smoking Service says that provided the children were spoken to delicately and tactfully there should be no problem at all and that the children themselves could end up benefiting.

This same local health authority was also responsible for the initiative to give pregnant mothers up to £100 if they made a commitment not to smoke during the term of their pregnancy.