Editor,—In the school year 1997/1998, a school-based European smoking prevention project, the Smokefree Class Competition, started for the first time. Target groups for the competition were pupils aged 12–14 years. Research has shown that there is a strong positive correlation between the age of starting to experiment with cigarette smoking and the probability of becoming a regular smoker. In a study by Meier,1 60% of regular smokers started smoking by the age of 13. However the probability of becoming a smoker after adolescence is quite low.2Therefore the principal aims of the smokefree class competition are to delay or prevent the onset of smoking and the reduction or cessation of cigarette smoking in pupils who have already experimented with smoking.

In the 1997/1998 school year Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom took part in the competition. In …