One puff to addiction

        “It’s only one, how could it hurt?” This is what many first time smokers say, but what they do not know is that one puff of smoke is all they need  to become addicted. According to research done by Dr. Joseph R. DiFranza and other medical specialists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, “very soon after the first cigarette, adolescents can experience a loss of autonomy over tobacco,” meaning that young people will lose their self-control and independence from the substance.

    Recent studies done by Dr. DiFranza explain the trend of dependence-related tolerance, which is how long you can go between smoking your first cigarette and your next cigarette. Although it was long believed that dependence-related tolerance was the same for everyone, no matter how old they were, these studies proved that adolescents’ brains can become more tolerant to nicotine than adult brains after smoking less than one cigarette a day. This tolerance impels teenagers to smoke more frequently. While teenagers start craving another cigarette within an hour of smoking their last one, adults can  go without smoking for days or even weeks but will eventually feel compelled to smoke. Teenage smokers, as well as adult smokers can feel symptoms of nicotine withdrawal, which can cause them to smoke more and more until they get hopelessly addicted.

    Each day almost six thousand middle school and high school students start smoking, and, of these 6, 000 kids, one third of them will grow up to be regular smokers. As of now, the U.S. has an estimated 4.5 million adolescents who smoke. In this day and age, it has been getting easier for teenagers to get a hold of cigarettes.

    Junior Alan Stalp said, “ It’s not hard for people to get a hold of them. In high school people have older friends that can get them for you or even some friends who work at stores and will sell them to you without checking for I.D.”

    In a very recent study, at Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, researchers found that as a smoker gets older and older, it is less likely that he or she will quit or even try to quit, which only stresses the fact that adolescent smokers should quit while they are young so they do not have to go through the negative effects of smoking in the future.

    “I’ve smoked cigarettes before. I started when I was thirteen,” said junior Bianca Temple, “My older friends and I were just hanging out and then they pressured me to smoke. They all did it because they were eighteen. But along with them pressuring me, I kind of wanted to try it out myself in order to see what it was like.” Temple smoked for a while, but stopped when she was 14, when she realized the negative effects it was having on her. “I thought it was cool at the time, until I realized that I wasn’t getting anything out of it. It was stupid and it made my breath stink, so I decided to stop.”

     “I started smoking half-way through sophomore year. I got cigarettes from friends. I didn’t do it to experiment, I just did it just because it was there and it was something to do,” said junior Nate Murray.
Most teenagers who start smoking cigarettes and doing other drugs, start as a result of peer pressure. “My friends didn’t really influence me at all, and I know that I’m definitely not addicted,” said Murray, but the fact of the matter is 90% of American smokers who are adults started smoking as adolescents, so there is a large possibility that it could lead to a future as an addicted smoker. “I guess the reason why I started was to get my mind off of things that stressed me out, like school,” said Murray.

    According to the American Lung Association, there are many dangers that can arise from adolescent smoking. Because they are not fully developed, they are more prone to having health problems at a young age. There are potential respiratory illnesses, development of severe cough and phlegm, dire physical fitness, and a possibility of retardation in the rate of lung growth. When asked about his opinion on teenage smoking, freshman Casey Pyne said, “I think that people do it just to fit in and then eventually they get hooked. They think it’s cool, but in this day and age, it’s really frowned upon by our society.”
Senior, Laura Dietrich thinks that because of peer pressure and their desire to fit in, people often find themselves smoking. “I think it looks kind of silly really, and it’s ridiculous that kids will steal cigarettes from their parents and even mooch them off of strangers.”

    Alex Doumbia, who is an Annandale alumnus, said that, “in high school I used to hang around people who smoked, but I never tried it. I don’t support smoking, because I think it is a disgusting habit, but I don’t really have a problem with it as long as people aren’t doing it in my face.” Now a student at Old Dominion University, he has observed the difference in the number of smokers in high school in comparison to college. “ Now that people in my school are eighteen, they think they will just try it, and then leave it alone, but then they eventually get hooked. When I walk to class I see about 12 people smoking each day on average. It’s not unusual.” Doumbia says that teens should be more active and do things like sports to get rid of stress instead of resorting to smoking for relief.
“I made a wrong decision when I started smoking,” said Temple, and now that I know from experience that it’s really bad for you, I would tell people not to start the habit, no matter how cool it looks to them.”