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ISSUES
YOUTH SMOKING PREVENTION
British American Tobacco strongly believes children should not smoke. To help ensure that only informed adults smoke, we are committed to programmes that tackle the issue of underage smoking, with the emphasis on education and access.
We view youth smoking as a critical issue in today's society, and we fully support laws and regulations on a minimum age for buying tobacco products, and penalties for retailers who break the law. Our Group's policy worldwide is not to market to anyone under 18 years old - or older, if the law in a particular country sets the age higher.
We are committed to pooling our resources and experience globally with others in the tobacco industry - and with governments and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) - to help prevent youth smoking. We acknowledge that some people are critical of the involvement of tobacco companies in efforts against youth smoking and accept that we should not support some types of activity in countries where local stakeholders strongly believe we should not be involved. Social Reporting at EU level will help us in assessing how EU stakeholders expect us to contribute to relevant programmes and solutions that can be implemented in EU member states.