"First Puff Can Turn Kids Into Smokers: Study"

[jody]

First Puff Can Turn Kids Into Smokers: Study

Researchers say almost a third of kids interviewed who tried smoking said their first cigarette brought them a feeling of relaxation -- and two-thirds of those kids went on to become smokers.

"This provides further support for the idea that dependence begins with the first cigarette," said study lead author Dr. Joseph DiFranza, a professor in the department of family medicine and community health at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Mass.

* * * * * * * * *

Furthermore, experiencing that feeling of being "relaxed" immediately after the first puff of a cigarette was the leading predictor of becoming dependent on cigarettes and then being unable to quit, the researchers found. Almost 29 percent of youngsters interviewed said they had experienced such a feeling after their first cigarette.

* * * * * * * * *

Post-inhale relaxation was the biggest risk factor for being unable to quit smoking, the researchers added. In fact, 91 percent of teens who claimed such feelings also said they were unable to kick the habit. Overall, almost 60 percent of the entire group of kids interviewed said they had lost their "autonomy," in terms of being able to stop smoking.

Cigarettes with nicotine are considered a "gateway drug" or "starter drug" in the drug abuse process.

Given the above study, should society ban cigarettes as an effective policy to fight drug abuse?

[Buzz Clik]

1. 100% of all smokers took a first puff at one time.

Of those who have never smoked, 100% of them never took that first puff.

[Warpy]

5. Not really

There are a lot of nonsmokers out there who tried it on a dare when they were kids. Most of them didn't like it. Some of them couldn't afford it. More than a few of them just didn't have those pathways in their brains and didn't see the point.

[Buzz Clik]

6. Well, now, I'm not sure I agree. If you stopped having sex (even after one time), ...

... you can be officially celibate, but you still aren't a virgin.

[Mojorabbit]

2. Most people

hack and cough after their first drag on a cig. I am wondering about self medication for another problem if relaxation is the first thing they felt. I have seen some research on people with depression self medicating with nicotine and being diagnosed only after they quit.
A bad habit I have been trying to quit for thirty years but I remember my first and relaxation was not what I felt, more like hacking,dizziness, and a small bit of nausea.

[Rageneau]

9. I ... cough, cough .. concur.

I did not get a thing from my first 50 puffs except light-headed and slightly nauseous. If it hadn't been such a "cool" habit, I could have never found the fortitude to fight through my body's screams and protestations long enough to become a confirmed smoker of over several decades.

These days, with the help of the wonder drug Chantix(TM), I am fighting through my body's screams and protestations that it absolutely as to have a cigarette this very MINUTE!

It wasn't nicotine that got me hooked on smoking; it was Joe Cool.

[Mojorabbit]

10. I tried Chantix

I became depressed and suidical on my fifth week(one of the infrequent side effects). I have no history of depression which makes me wonder.... It was working so well too and I am bummed my doctor took me off it but three days later I was back to my old self but now am smoking again. I am trying minature tootsie pops as a substitute.

[Mike K]

18. As I recall, it took a week or more -

- before I was able to tolerate smoking a whole Lucky Strike. I was fifteen and the only reason I made the endeavor in the first place was to impress a girl I liked. That was back in 1950 when, as you've correctly noted, it was cool to smoke cigarettes.

That was the commencement of a thirty-five year habit that I managed to kick in 1985. And, as I'm sure you'll agree, the nonsense about becoming hooked on the first puff of a cigarette is exactly that -- nonsense. The fact is one needs to persistently work at acquiring a nicotine habit.

[Warpy]

3. Hell, no

Just make them too expensive for most kids. Use the taxes to fund cessation strategies for when the kids who do get hooked grow up.

I believe in educating kids about the real risks. They won't pay much attention to them while they're kids, but they'll remember them when they grow up. I believe in offering programs for people in later life when they run into trouble, as part of a comprehensive, single payer health system.

I don't believe in being a nanny. I hate every bit of the nanny state, especially the attack on civil liberties that the drug war brought us.

I'd rather deal with stoners and junkies than with the loss of liberty.

[peace13]

4. Sounds more like wacky tobaccy to me!

Seriously, my Father let me take a puff of his cigarette when I was five. What a terrible nose burning, hacking experience. I can say that I have never had another cigarette to my mouth. Worked for me!

[jody]

7. Respondents to the OP ignore the point that cigarettes are a "gateway drug" and 29% of first time

smokers experienced a feeling of being "relaxed" immediately after the first puff of a cigarette. That was the leading predictor of becoming dependent on cigarettes and then being unable to quit.

If that cause and effect relationship is valid, then nicotine cigarettes are possibly more dangerous as a "gateway drug" than the evil marijuana cigarette trumpeted as a "gateway drug" to hard drugs.

[NRaleighLiberal]

8. I tried it when I was a teen. Went through about a pack in fact.

Hated it - burned my throat, smelled awful - thought about what I was doing (lighting something on fire and pulling the smoke into my body) - and decided that it wasn't for me. Just irrational - people getting abuzz about pollution, etc - and then pulling the crap directly into their lungs. I recognized it for what it was - a potential strong addiction that I had no use for.

[soothsayer]

11. played at smoking when I was 12 or 13 (puffing). We were playing cowboys.

Found myself after dinner really, really, REALLY wanting to sneak back out to the woods to puff some more. That thought terrified me so much I never touched them again for 20 years. Now I can puff all I want, I definitely do not wind up craving them, and have no desire to inhale.

I think they're more addictive when you're young, and there's 100% chance that the tobacco companies know that, too.

[hazardballsaem]

12. I completely

agree i am only 16, i started smoking when I was 14 and i can say that i have been addicted since my first puff. Maybe not physically but psychologically i became addicted. On that note i don't believe that there is anything wrong with smoking it is the persons free right to smoke if that is what they want to do!



:smoke:

[jmowreader]

13. There's a term for this: virgin high

If you take a psychoactive drug for the first time--whether it's a beer, a cigarette, a shot of heroin, whatever--the high you get from it will be the best high you will ever get. This because your receptors have never seen it before, and they'll really go wild. From then on, every time you do that drug you will be looking to repeat that high. I don't remember where I read this, but it makes sense: tequila was a lot more fun that first time out.

[bamacrat]

14. I hated it my first time.

But when I went to college and began drinking the buzz from the alcohol seemed to lessen the harshness of the tobacco and after a while I smoked only when I drank. Which I saw no problem with I was a social smoker. But tobacco isn't like weed slowly I began smoking a cigarette after a bowl or joint because it seemed to compliment my high very well then I was smoking one here and there when i would study, then I was smoking half a pack a day as a way to break up my work day. Stopped smoking weed to get a job have had no side effects, cravings anything. Have tried to stop smoking cigarettes like 15 times, no luck. I don't think it should be banned because I don't think anything should be, we all the the right to do whatever we want to our bodies. I just wish it didn't go so well with alcohol, weed, stress, driving, after food, boredom, talking, walking or any time.

[TawanaNBD]

15. Why is drug USE always assumed to equal drug ABuse?

Or, more likely, very deliberately and manipulatively passed off as such? Yes, smoking is bad for you, but so is playing sports. So is driving. Walking alone at night. It is a fact of life that SOMETHING is gonna kill you at the end of it. :) Why is tacking an extra 20 years on at the end of your life, from 60 to 80 to 70 to 90, so all-fired important to "them," whoever "they" are? Anyway, I digress. Even if smoking is (unbelievably ridiculously IMO) deemed to be a gateway drug, it's a gateway to what? To using pot? When and why did USING pot suddenly become equivalent to having some horrible pot-addiction? For that matter, no one has proved to my satisfaction that pot is a gateway to anything either. My opinion is that people who abuse drugs, as opposed to using them responsibly, are almost certainly doing it to self-medicate (just like people who drink do). Whatever they're self-medicating for, most likely pain relief, whether physical or emotional, is a problem that's already there. IMO, THAT is the gateway. The pain and natural human desire to seek cessation of pain is what's going to drive these people from pot to harder drugs, aka stronger and better medications. So you can ban drug after drug until the cows come home, but until you address the root problem, which is whatever pain or anxiety is making the person need to feel relaxed or "loose" or at least unmindful of that pain, you're fighting the same losing battle that the US has in the war on drugs since, what, the 60s? For 50 years now and I don't think things are one whit better--isn't one of the signs of insanity, to keep doing an action over and over when it's not working or helping? :)

Sorry for the rant, this is one of my pet peeves and I need to stay away from this forum. :)

[Mike K]

19. Well said, Tawana.

[JonLP24]

16. No thanks to the ban

I don't believe in using necessary law enforcement to pursue those with cigarettes that can be used for real crimes.

Some interesting replies in this thread. For me cigarettes like coffee and beer was a learned taste. I didn't like any of those at first but after awhile I began to get used to the taste and even enjoy it.

[droidamus2]

17. Not me

Though I never became a full time smoker (did it here and there usually when I had a roommate that smoked) but all I remember from my first cigarette was a feeling of nausea which in my view isn't really that relaxing.