How RIGHT you ARE!!!
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.
When I was growing up, no one ever HEARD of asthma. Now that smokers can't light up whereever they want anymore, asthma is on the rise. Could it be "air pollution" instead of our nasty second hand smoke?
Asthma: The Politics of Blaming Tobacco Smoke
Fewer people smoke now than ever before, and smoking restrictions and bans have resulted in even less exposure to secondhand smoke. Yet, adult and childhood asthma cases have increased from approximately 6.7 million in 1980 to 17.3 million in 1998, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. [1]
The dramatic increase in asthma clearly flies in the face of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's stated claim in 1994 that restricting exposure to secondhand smoke would result in the reduction of thousands of new cases of childhood asthma annually and save billions of dollars a year. [2]
Contrary to what the EPA would have us believe, medical researchers are increasingly putting the blame for asthma on our modern day obsession with cleanliness, not on tobacco smoke. For further discussion on this, see"Smoke and the Asthma Epidemic: A Reality Check," by Wanda Hamilton.
How RIGHT you ARE!!!
There's even a TV ad for some spray crap showing a mother sterilizing her sons bicycle handlebars!
What happened to the old saw about "eating a pound of dirt before you die"?
I'm on my second pound now. Drop food on the floor? Kiss it up to God and eat hearty.
FR should add an "edit" function.
No one wants dust mites and dust balls under beds. But there IS a reason these things are here. Preventing kids in the homes against "dust" is not doing them any favor when they go out into the real world which is FULL of air pollution!
Glad you managed to quit it all, but with your track record, it seems you are predisposed to addiction.
Sort of, I started at 15 and was really messed up for years.
Believe it or not I had friends who were much worse, and quite a few of them died young as a result. Sad.
Spend a lot time on FR, then?
Self-reporting = USELESS study. Anyone that cites this "study" is committing fraud.
Maybe it's inherited.....
Asthma was practically unheard of when I was a kid. And everyone smoked. Now today, smoking is supposedly down, and everyone has ASTHMA. Mind boggling!
You're quick, must be the smoke.
Exactly! Why don't more people see the contradictions in the anti-smokers' arguments? It makes me sick to see anti-smokers claim that working an 8 hour shift in a bar is like smoking anywhere from 6 to a full pack of cigarettes. Given that they also now claim this, then by all means, anyone exposed to any SHS at all should be addicted. Oh, and don't let em give you the nicotine is more potent in direct smoking than secondhand bullshit. They measure cotinine in non-smokers blood to determine exposure, and that is the metabolyte of the body breaking down nicotine. The latest National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey's (NHANES) preliminary results indicate that non-smokers have 75% LESS cotinine in samples taken in 1999 from those taken in 88-91, indicating much reduced levels of exposure.
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