More than 1,000 children in Cumbria smoke regularly - the rest just smoke when they're having a drink.

Does anyone ever stop and think that there are already stringent laws on youngsters using illegal substances (including alcohol for the under 18's) and yet they are all widely used and abused...and largely accepted by our liberal society. If we can't stop youngsters using these sunstances with the full weight of the law, why do we think the colour and patterns on cigarette packets will make any difference?

Me - yeah as if that will work. See "prohibition, America c1920s"

I'd just ban smoking full stop, filthy habit. Stop all shops selling tobacco and make it illegal to smoke in the UK.

Amazing how the more you make smoking forbidden and dangerous, the more that youngsters want to do it. Fancy that?

Blaming it on fancy packaging is a load of old rubbish. Its dangerous and fun, youngsters see themselves as invincible. No matter how much you drill in the dangers, it wont make a difference.

Changing from branded to plain packaging: is this the best these people can do? It's a joke, and every day that goes by another Cumbrian child starts the habit that will eventually kill them. Children would be less likely to start smoking if they knew what the consequences were. A visit from a terminally-ill smoker, a trip to the cancer ward at the local hospital, and pictures of diseased lungs hung on classroom walls are the sorts of shock tactics we should be using to persuade our children not to go down this disastrous route. Pleasant? No. Effective? I'd say it was worth a try.

My buddy teenage pal smoked most of his life and sadly died aged just short of his retirement age. Someone later added to me... did he have a wife and family? He added the real reality that his selfish habit has left this wife devoid of husband and father to his children. He had just become a grandfather when he died. He was most of his life a really grand father but it could have been longer if he had never smoked. In my schooldays such young children went into hidden corners against being caught smoking but now they openly in public smoke unashamedly with cigarette often ajar. I believe it is a now a form of a risky rebellion...