Posted on 05/30/2010 6:03:00 PM PDT by Drango
Teenage smoking is often thought of as kind of innocent experiment, but a drag on a friend's cigarette may be the beginning of something that will be hard to shake.
A study of adolescent smokers in the journal Pediatrics tracks the course of addiction to nicotine among a group of sixth-graders. After following 1,246 middle-school children for four years, researchers say a pattern emerged of occasional smoking that led to an addiction to tobacco: A cigarette a month will do it.
"When people are just wanting a cigarette, every now and then, they think they just enjoy smoking," says study coauthor Dr. Joseph DiFranza of the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. "As time passes, then they start to notice they will crave a cigarette. So even when they are with someone who is not smoking, something will pop into their mind that will tell them it is time for a cigarette."
He adds, "When they get to the point of needing a cigarette, that means they have an urgent need to smoke and they have to smoke to get it out of their heads."
More Than Just A Taste
A third of the young people in the study had inhaled from a cigarette. Nearly two-thirds of those who'd tried cigarettes said they smoked at least once a month, and half said they experienced symptoms of dependence.
That's how 19-year-old Julia DiGeronimo's habit started at the age of 15.
"I wasn't smoking every day. It was every once and a while and then it became more, when I was 16 and 17," she says. "It was, like, OK I had friends that smoked so it was only with them I was smoking."
She didn't really think of herself as being addicted to nicotine, nor did the kids in the study. It didn't occur to DiGeronomio that she was addicted until she was 18 and realized she was able to buy her first pack of cigarettes legally. Now, she says, she smokes seven cigarettes a day and talks of quitting — after she finishes her exams.
DiGeronimo was part of a crowd standing outside a club in Washington, D.C. A thick gray cloud swirled out of a heavy-duty ash tray stand, which got even thicker when the band playing inside the club would finish a set.
She's a pretty typical example of how addiction progresses, DiFranza says. He found that there was a sequence of symptoms among the sixth-graders that was associated with the frequency with which young people said they smoked. Two years into the study, a third of the students who had ever puffed a cigarette found that they had little control over the habit. Even if it was only once a month, they lit up.
"What happens is when you first get addicted, one cigarette a month or one cigarette a week is enough to keep your addiction satisfied," says Difranza. "But as time goes by, you have to smoke cigarettes more and more frequently. So people may be addicted for more than a year before they feel the need to smoke a cigarette every day."
Recognizing Addiction
The most common reported symptom was a strong desire for a cigarette — a good indicator, according to the study, that the student is likely to become a daily smoker — even if the student was then only smoking monthly. A few even said early they experienced withdrawal. They had trouble concentrating, were more irritable and had trouble sleeping.
Young people can bum cigarettes off friends and not consider themselves addicted. They tell themselves that if they are not buying cigarettes, they aren't hooked. In the meantime, the frequency with which they smoke increases. One day they realize they aren't going to make it without buying a pack of cigarettes.
About three or more years later, a fourth of the students who tried to stop smoking experienced withdrawal symptoms.
Before this study, DiFranza says, most research did not view wanting a cigarette every once in a while as a sign that addiction was starting. This study concludes that people ought to be educated to recognize that this is the beginning of addiction, and the best time to quit.
People who keep smoking — even occasionally, DiFranza says — are fooling themselves if they think they don't have an addiction to nicotine.
/ s
Reefer Madness starts at one toke a month.
Having a very high intolerance(allergy) to chemicals is a blessing.
The video has to be fake, ‘cause as everyone knows kids can’t be come addicted to cigarettes. /s
Maybe I’m an oddball (I admit to be eccentric) but IMO its more mind over matter.
I started smoking when I was 13 and quit when I was 17 - cold turkey and I was smoking at least a pack a day.
And just where are these mythical kids who smoke just one cigarette a month?
So let’s make underage smoking illegal.
Oh, wait, it’s already illegal.
Hmm, wonder if this Captain Obvious here is angling for more laws? Like, no possession of a cigarette within 1000 feet of a minor?
Who says it is besides you? If you stopped making things up you wouldn't have anything to say would you?
???? says what?
You claim that someone is promoting cigarette smoking for children as a conservative value. But you can’t show that anyone has ever said that.
Here....I’ll say it again...it’s not a conservative value to addict children.
Here....I’ll say it again...no one has ever said it is.
I’m not a scientist, but I really don’t think it’s the nicotine that is addictive. I think it’s the ritual. If it was just the nicotine, then patches/meds would work to satisfy the craving. On the other hand, e-cigs are different animal (and that can be with our without nicotine) and that seems to be the best thing that’s ever happened to smokers.
Have you tried e-cigarettes (hopefully you are done, though)? There is so much out there now, it's not like puffing air through a straw.
And for anyone else reading too who smokes, do yourself a favor and read www.e-cigarette-forum.com It's an open forum on ALL things e-cig, and not part of any company/etc. It's an open discussion forum.
The minute I was released it was back to my first master Nikotine.
And as the United States has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, an enormous load of government and social BS every single day can get a kid stupid.
Maybe it’s time to worry a little more about that.
Honest!,,there is a forest beyond that tree!
If you are addicted to nicotine, try e-cigs with nicotine juice. At least that way you aren’t also inhaling tar and a bunch of other stuff. Seriously, I don’t think you have ANY idea how good this stuff is. I think if you tried a decent e-cig you would be blown away.
At least check out the website I posted...for you, not for me.
Good luck, and I hope you find something that helps you out. :)
Huh?
I said I wasn’t an expert. Just trying to pass along info that has been helpful to me and others I know. Take it or leave it. Depends on how much one wants to help him/herself in the end in terms of researching options, I guess.
1) I tried cigarettes and didn't particularly like or enjoy them.
2) I used my new slide rule to estimate how much my father was spending on cigarettes, and determined that, for that much money, I could get a used car.
So -- I never really started smoking -- and I am forever glad of that fact...
But what about “medical professionals” Prescribing marijuana for things like ADHD in teens? Imagine the screaming if doctors wrote prescriptions for tobacco for teens to “calm them down”?
It appears not a single parent detected their kid was smoking and intervened.
If a kid looses enough privledges or freedom, he’ll stop a bad habit.
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