Posted on 11/05/2003 8:54:45 PM PST by Between the Lines
Research refutes belief it takes time to become addicted.
TORONTO -- The first puff on a cigarette could be enough to hook a young teenager into addiction, according to new Canadian research.
The extraordinary findings upend the prevailing view about nicotine addiction being a slowly acquired process that occurs only after several years of heavy smoking, suggesting instead that some young people show the first signs of addiction almost immediately after taking a drag on a cigarette.
The study, by a team that includes researchers from McGill University and the University of Toronto, could have dramatic implications for the methods currently used to curtail smoking among young people.
"We know that prevention campaigns are not working. This should make us wonder whether prevention is actually relevant at all," says Jennifer O'Loughlin, a McGill University epidemiologist and lead author of the study, which is published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
She said these new findings could shift anti-smoking campaigns for young people away from the traditional focus on resisting the pressure to smoke and force advocates to consider the kinds of cessation measures now only being used for adults, such as putting young people on the nicotine patch.
"This is big news because right now, most prevention is based on peer-resistance learning," says Dr. O'Loughlin.
Her team's study, which was culled from ongoing surveys of more than 1,200 teenagers over the span of about six years, demonstrates the physical addiction is a much stronger force than peer pressure, even among those who smoked only rarely.
"What we're talking about is the metabolism of nicotine in kids, the neurophysiological symptoms that lead to addiction," Dr. O'Loughlin says.
The study found that some young people showed signs of nicotine dependence long before they demonstrated any heavy daily tobacco use.
The data was drawn from questionnaires taken several times a year by Montreal- area students.
The students have been tracked by researchers from the time they were in Grade 7, or about 12 years old, at an age where many of them had not even smoked at all.
The youngsters were queried about their tobacco use and whether they smoked at all, how frequently, and what sorts of feelings and cravings it elicited in them. The questions attempt to draw out whether the smokers are experiencing any symptoms of nicotine dependence, while using language that acknowledges the different smoking behaviour of teenagers.
"Kids don't smoke the same way as adults do, nor do they experience nicotine dependence in the same way," says Dr. O'Loughlin, referring to adult measures that gauge whether someone lights up first thing in the morning, for example, when most teenagers sneak around to smoke. This study asks teens to describe how difficult it is for them to be in a movie theatre and not able to smoke, for example.
The young smokers were categorized as triers, who had only smoked once or twice in their lifetime; sporadic smokers, who smoked more than three times in their lifetime, but not monthly, weekly or daily; those who smoked at least once a month; weekly smokers, who smoked more than once a week but not daily; and those who smoked daily.
The study found that despite low cigarette exposure, 16 per cent of those who had smoked in the past three months were tobacco dependent, according to the responses given to the questionnaires.
Although none of the triers demonstrated signs of dependence, three per cent of the sporadic smokers and 4.6 per cent of the monthly smokers indicated dependence symptoms. About two-thirds of the daily smokers, and almost 20 per cent of weekly smokers, were dependent.
By using blood samples which were also taken from those who participated in the survey, researchers may be able to further explore any "genetic predisposition" to nicotine addiction, says Dr. O'Loughlin.
"Levels of cigarette exposures associated with increased frequency of smoking are likely to vary ... possibly reflecting differing genetic, biological, and psychosocial predispositions and sensitivities to nicotine," the study says.
"Nicotine dependence symptoms appear in many young tobacco users between the first exposure to nicotine and the onset of daily smoking ... countering current conceptualizations that the development of nicotine dependent smoking necessitates years of heavy regular smoking."
The researchers say the findings send a clear message that anti-smoking programs aimed at children and adolescents must take into account these kinds of early nicotine dependent symptoms.
The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
I am surprised they didn't conclude that second hand smoke also addicted children.
Yes, I quit several times and found that a pack of cigarettes was more than enough to become re-addicted.
After trying several times to quit, and some temporary help from Welbutrin I've been off cigarettes for almost 5 years now.
I quit several drugs including speed, heroin, cocaine etc. and found cigarettes the most difficult.
Next thing you know, trial lawyers will be sueing innocent people because some get rich quick loser will say she got addicted by that deadly, evil second hand smoke.
I'd still like to hear about one person that has ever died from second hand smoke. The facts just aren't out there. This may very well be a case of "Repeat a lie loud enough and often enough and people will begin to believe it."
Sheesh!! You've been around the block, aye?
No reason for smokers to be mad at me. Please don't be.
I now have small cell lung cancer. Terminal. And of course it's blamed entirely on smoking. (I'm now 49.) I don't believe the spin, and I'm not in denial or making excuses that all those years of the terrible sin of smoking cigarettes is now killing me. The terrible sin I'm afflicted with is reason. People on both sides need a dose of it.
I had breast cancer 15 years ago. Other people in my family have had, and continue to get, cancer of many different kinds. We are genetically predisposed to cancer: cervical, brain, breast, and lung. Most of us also smoke, but most of us don't get cancer. My father died of emphysema but no one else in the family, smokers or not, got it.
If the medical and political communities were more honest, instead of hysterical, more people might listen. I believe smoking may have *contributed* in *my case* to lung cancer, but not that it caused it.
It's too much in one post to get into it, but I'm in the midst of a medical quamire. Breast cancer, prostate cancer, are being cured, and advancing all the time, but lung cancer is automatically considered terminal. Why? Because there's no research money into cure. It's politically incorrect to have lung cancer - there's no sympathy. I've caused my own death, so why throw bad money after it? The medical gestapo has decided that *ALL* SCLC - and ALL NSCLC - is caused by smoking. That's a whole lot easier than trying to figure out other causes of lung cancer. And then everyone else believes it, despite the fact that most smokers don't have any diseases at all.
Considering the idiot commercials presently on during primetime television, you'd think that one breath of second-hand smoke was enough to cause cardiac arrest in an otherwise healthy young person.
Sheesh...I grew up so I wouldn't have a mother nagging me all the time and now all I get during commercial breaks is the state taking up the nagging role.
And my tax dollars are paying for this? I must have run over a nun in a past life or something...
Caffine is certainly addictive, and it's a great drug too. If it wasn't, not many people would use it either.
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.My asthma went away after I started smoking.
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