Twenty-six percent of graduating high school males smoke every day, indicating that restrictions placed on vending machines and minors in 1996 are failing to deter youth from smoking, according to a health ministry poll.

The most recent figures in the survey, conducted by a study group of the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, came out nearly the same for boys as in the 1996 survey. The proportion of high school girls who smoke, meanwhile, rose slightly from five years ago to 8 percent.

In 1996, authorities and cigarette vending machine operators banned sales from around midnight to early morning, but the unchanged numbers of junior and high school students who smoke show those measures may have not had the intended effect.

According to the survey, 37 percent of graduating male high school students and 16 percent of females had smoked at least once in the past 30 days. At junior high schools, 6 percent of first-year boys and 4 percent of girls had smoked at least once in the past 30 days.

Of graduating male high school students, 76 percent said they bought cigarettes from vending machines, up 1 percent from the previous survey. Among females, 52 percent used the machines, up 5 percent, according to the survey.

Most of the first-year junior high school girls said they were given the cigarettes.

Meanwhile, 50 percent of graduating high school males bought cigarettes at convenience stores and supermarkets, up 40 percent from 1996. The percentage for females was 26 percent, up from 19 percent in 1996, the survey results say, noting that few women buy cigarettes at store counters.

The survey anonymously polled students in about 180 junior high and high schools across the nation from December 2000 through January 2001. About 106,000 students responded.