Smoking and Young Adolescents

According to a new research, trying just one cigarette can make it more likely that young adolescents will take up smoking. Using a large study sample, Dr. Jennifer Fidler of University College, London and her colleagues have shown that the influence on future tobacco use of smoking a single cigarette can last up to 3 years. Children who smoked a cigarette at age eleven (and had never smoked before) were twice as likely to start smoking regularly by age fourteen as 11-year-olds who had never smoked. The reason for this "sleeper effect" is not known, but the researchers think it could be associated with changes in the brain that make children more likely to experience stress or depression (and then use cigarettes to feel better) and/or that they become less afraid of being caught.

Also see these other resources:

• What You(th) Should Know About Tobacco

• World No Tobacco Day - May 31, 2006

• Stop Tobacco Shop