Does Early Smoking Signal Later Problems? The observation that adolescents who smoke also tend to have a variety of other problems (including the use of alcohol and other drugs, academic difficulties, delinquency, and impaired relationships) is not new. But a recent series of studies by Phyllis Ellickson and her colleagues at RAND has extended those observations to examine the long-term social consequences of smoking in early adolescence. Whereas earlier studies focused on older adolescents, we have examined the trajectory of smoking from the middle school years to the end of high school and have assessed the association between early smoking...
