Press Release
11 September 2000 immediate
Adolescents addicted to nicotine as early as age 12
Kids can beaddicted to cigarettes as early as age 12 and after only four weeks of smoking.[1] ASH warned that the biggest riskfacing teenage smokers was not direct ill-health, but that they would becomeaddicted to nicotine very quickly and find it hard to quit when they reachtheir twenties or thirties.
Clive Bates,Director of ASH said:
"People think the real nicotine addicts are the40-a-day 50 year old chain smokers, but the research shows that symptoms ofphysical dependence set in very early and even with very light smoking.
"The big risk for teenagers is not that they aregoing to keel over with a heart attack or cancer when they reach 20, but thatnicotine addiction will set it and they will find it difficult or impossible toquit when they want to.
"We also know that teenagers overestimate thelikelihood that they will actually be able to quit. Most are confident thatthey will stop when they want to, but less than half do. Many teenagers are destined to join the 70percent of adults that want to quit smoking.
"When teenagers start smoking, they are in theglamour phase when smoking seems cools, exciting and adult, but all the time the physical addiction isbuilding up. At some point the glamouris gone but the smoker is hooked, and to the tobacco companies a new loyal andlifelong customer."
As the tobaccocompany Philip Morris explained in 1969 [2]:
“a cigarettefor the beginner is a symbolic act. I am no longer my mother's child, I'mtough, I am an adventurer, I'm notsquare … As the force from the psychological symbolism subsides, thepharmacological effect takes over to sustain the habit. (1969)
[1] DiFranza J et al. Initial symptoms of nicotinedependence in adolescents. TobaccoControl 2000;9:313-319 View article as a PDF
[2] Philip Morris, Vice President for Research andDevelopment, Why one smokes, 1969.
Contact: Clive Bates, 020 7739 5902 (w) 0468 791237(m)
