Smokers Are Still High School’s ‘Cool Kids,’ Study Finds

Hispanically Speaking News ^ | September 7, 2012 | HS News Staff

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Nanny State PING!

[xtinct]

teen point of view —> * banning a product * * putting a legal age on it * etc. makes it sexy to use those products

[Boogieman]

Exactly. They’d do a better job of stopping teen smoking if they made an after school special about how awesome smoking was and made everyone watch that in health class.

[nascarnation]

Who wouldn't want to be on the Choom Gang?

[relictele]

We had an officially sanctioned smoking area between wings of a high school. Every day we’d walk by a bunch of miserable looking losers standing outside in appalling weather so they could earn bad breath that could be detected two classrooms away.

Unsurprisingly, the number of smokers never increased and probably decreased thanks to this ‘bad example’ model which far surpassed the lazy adult peer pressure excuse.

[Lazamataz]

Edelman said the solution may be pocketbook-based. “Kids are prone to risky behavior because they feel immortal. The most tried-and-true method, especially with adolescents, is to raise the price of cigarettes."

Right, because kids can't afford expensive things.

Like cocaine, marijuana, Ipads and cars.

Effin' moneygrabbing moron is all this guy is.

[elkfersupper]

Yup.

Can't have those free thinkers and disrespectors of authority going around doing whatever they want.

Next thing you know, they'll all be thrusting their pelvises around at us in public like that Elvis guy.

[Drango]

The most tried-and-true method, especially with adolescents, is to raise the price of cigarettes.

Largely 'cause adults have turned a blind eye to the addiction of youth, society will continue to vote to increase the cost of smoking. Bummer.

ECON 101 still wins. An increase in the price of an item, will decrease demand.

[Brookhaven]

I always viewed the students that smoked as the stupid kids.

My opinion hasn’t changed much over the years.

[dfwgator]

Maybe they realize if they smoke, they can grow up to become President.

[9YearLurker]

That certainly wasn’t the case in my school.

I suppose we also had virtually zero Hispanic population.

[9YearLurker]

Ha ha—we had something like that at my school too!

[rudabaga]

“Exactly. They’d do a better job of stopping teen smoking if they made an after school special about how awesome smoking was and made everyone watch that in health class.”

A great idea!

[discostu]

The harder they try to make it cool to not smoke the cooler it will be to smoke. Teenagers have a natural rebellious instinct. They should start handing out free smokes for good grades, that would make it nerdy to smoke and kids won’t want to.

[Drango]

I always viewed the students that smoked as the stupid kids.

Well yeah, but that doesn't go over well on the smoking threads. Pointing out the fact that smoking is highly negatively correlated with education (and income) only gets you insulted by certain zealots.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The question is, however, should government be making all this money off of addicted teens? Isn’t that a form of exploitation?

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The smokers at my high school were mainly white kids. Of course, when the student body is majority white...

[TigersEye]

• Smokers Are Still High School’s ‘Cool Kids,’ Study Finds
• "...The most tried-and-true method, especially with adolescents, is to raise the price of cigarettes.”
• The average price of a pack of cigarettes in 1955 was $.23 cents.
• The average price in 2012 is $5.71.

One of these statements stands out like a steaming pile of horse manure. LOL

[ThisLittleLightofMine]

I was just talking to my daughter about this yesterday, a square with trees and ashtrays between the gym and cafeteria. It is unbelievable that they had a smoking area for minors.