Health Consequences - Smoking and Adolescence
Smoking and adolescence
There are nearly 4 million American adolescents who have used a tobacco product
in the past month. Nearly 90 percent of smokers start smoking by age 18, and of
smokers under 18 years of age, more than 6 million will die prematurely from a smoking-related
disease.
Tobacco use in teens is not only the result of psychosocial influences, such as
peer pressure; recent research suggests that there may be biological reasons for
this period of increased vulnerability. Indeed, even intermittent smoking can result
in the development of tobacco addiction in some teens. Animal models of teen smoking
provide additional evidence of an increased vulnerability. Adolescent rats are more
susceptible to the reinforcing effects of nicotine than adult rats, and take more
nicotine when it is available than do adult animals.
Adolescents may also be more sensitive to the reinforcing effects of nicotine in
combination with other chemicals found in cigarettes, thus increasing susceptibility
to tobacco addiction. As mentioned above, acetaldehyde increases nicotine’s addictive
properties in adolescent, but not adult, animals. That is, adolescent animals performing
a task to receive nicotine showed greater response rates to nicotine when combined
with acetaldehyde. An increasing number of organizations actively support research
aimed at increasing our understanding of why and how adolescents become addicted,
and to develop prevention, intervention, and treatment strategies to meet the specific
needs of teens.