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Health Topics
Understanding the Drugs Teens Use
The Gateway Drugs: Tobacco
Tobacco the smoking
gun
No drug habit has a greater negative impact on our national health than tobacco,
which is implicated in more than four hundred thousand deaths in the United
States each year.
Almost every long-term
smoker first lights up during adolescence.
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The list of disorders caused or aggravated by tobacco is staggering.
Among these diseases are cancers of the lungs, mouth, vocal cords, and other
organs; chronic lung disease; asthma; ulcers; clogging of the vessels that supply
blood to the heart and other organs, causing heart attacks, strokes, amputations,
and premature deaths.
Babies and children who breathe smokers' exhaust at home
are at risk for respiratory infections, asthma, and sudden infant death syndrome
(SIDS).
The vast majority of diseases related
to tobacco take their toll later in life after subjects have had years of exposure.
So why is adolescent tobacco use such a major concern?
- Nicotine is extremely
addictive. Nicotine's hook is set quickly and, once in place, is extremely
difficult to remove. A few hits of nicotine produce a unique combination of
relaxation and alertness, and withdrawal produces unpleasant physical and psychological
symptoms. As a result, fewer than 10 percent of smokers can limit their habit
to five cigarettes or fewer per day.
Almost every long-term
smoker first lights up during adolescence. Nearly 30 percent of any high
school graduation class are regular smokers, as are more than 70 percent of
their peers who dropped out of school. Over the past two decades, the average
age at which tobacco use begins has dropped from 16 to 12. The younger one becomes
nicotine dependent, the more cigarettes will be smoked as an adult.
A huge amount of money
is spent every year to make smoking appear glamorous and exciting. The
tobacco industry's annual multibillion-dollar advertising budget is supposedly
intended to encourage adults to switch brands, but the cartoon characters, sexy
young couples, macho men, and liberated women in cigarette ads have clearly
been shown to influence children and adolescents. Heavy visibility of these
ads at sporting and cultural events also sends definite signals that tobacco
is hot stuff. Warnings issued in health-education class pale in comparison.
In one survey of high school smokers, more than 95 percent were aware of health
risks, but 70 percent claimed they were not concerned enough to stop.
Cigarettes keep very
bad company. Smoking is associated with significantly poorer school performance
and a higher likelihood of sexual activity. Because the use of alcohol and marijuana
is significantly greater among adolescent smokers, tobacco is identified as
a "gateway" drug one that increases the odds of using even
more dangerous substances. It is the last of these points that should sound
the alarm for parents of adolescent smokers. If your teenager is smoking cigarettes,
he is seven times more likely to be using illicit drugs" and eleven times
more likely to be drinking heavily than his nonsmoking counterparts.
Smokeless (chewing and
snuffing) tobacco, which has been made highly visible (and glamorized to some
degree) by users who are professional athletes, is not a safe alternative to
cigarettes. Surveys show that about 12 percent of male high school students
currently use smokeless tobacco. Usage rates are even higher in many Native
American populations. Chewing tobacco is clearly associated with damage to the
gingiva (the soft tissues surrounding the teeth) and with aggressive cancers
of the mouth. Furthermore, both chewing and snuffing deliver powerful jolts
of nicotine. A 1993 report from the National Institutes of Health indicates
that a typical dose of snuff contains twice the amount of nicotine in a cigarette,
while a wad of chewing tobacco contains fifteen times that amount. Needless
to say, addiction to these substances is very common, as are withdrawal symptoms
when use is stopped.
The Focus on the Family Physicians Resource Council, U.S.A.
Adapted from Parents' Guide to Teen Health,
a Focus on the Family publication.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Last updated: May 2005
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Parents' Guide to Teen Health
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