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Surgeon General: Teen Smoking an 'Epidemic'

Thomas3.20.2010
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WASHINGTON -- More than 3.6 million kids smoke cigarettes, according to a new report from the surgeon general on the scope and health consequences on tobacco use among youth.

"Today, more than 600,000 middle school students and three million high school students smoke," according to U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD, who called youth smoking an "epidemic."

The report is the first aimed at children and adolescents since one in 1994 that concluded that if young people don't try smoking by the age of 18, they'll likely never start.

Tobacco is the leading cause of preventable and premature death, killing an estimated 443,000 Americans each year, according to the report.

Every day in the U.S., more than 3,800 young people under 18 smoke their first cigarette and more than 1,000 of them will become daily smokers, according to the report.

About three out of four high school smokers continue to smoke well into adulthood, the report said.

Although youth smoking rates dropped rapidly from 1997 to 2004, they are falling more slowly now.

The report culled existing research and found that starting to smoke at a young age has "substantial health risks that begin immediately" including shortness of breath, wheezing, and asthma in susceptible adolescents, impaired lung growth and reduced lung function, and early abdominal aortic atherosclerosis in young adults.

 

"We now know smoking causes immediate physical damage, some of which is permanent," Benjamin said.

There's also suggestive -- but not sufficient -- evidence to conclude that there is a causal relationship between smoking in adolescence and young adulthood and coronary artery atherosclerosis in adulthood, the report said.

The report writers also found:

      
  • Data do not support that tobacco use facilitates weight loss in adolescents.
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  • Young people who have a greater number of peers who smoke are more likely to start smoking themselves, and even exposure to actors in movies lighting up increases the likelihood that a young person will begin to smoke.
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  • The evidence is "suggestive but not sufficient" to conclude that smoking contributes to future use of marijuana and other illegal drugs.

 

Cigarettes aren't the only problem, the report found. Nearly one in five white adolescent males uses smokeless tobacco and one in 10 young adults smoke cigars.

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in a preface to the report that the government must build on its past anti-tobacco efforts and work to cut teen tobacco use rates even further.

 

The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement -- when the major U.S. tobacco companies agreed to pay $206 billion to states over 25 years -- eliminated most cigarette billboard advertising, print advertising directed to underage youth, and limited brand sponsorship of cigarettes.

More than a decade later, a 2009 law that gave the FDA regulatory control over tobacco products contained a number of provisions aimed at preventing kids from smoking, including banning certain flavored cigarettes which public health advocates say are intended to get kids hooked early by masking the tobacco taste of cigarettes.

The economic stimulus bill that same year gave $225 million to support tobacco prevention efforts in states, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to cover tobacco cessation programs at no cost to the patient.

Sebelius remarked in the report that the perception of smoking has changed markedly in the past several decades.

"We have come a long way since the days of smoking on airplanes and in college classrooms, but we have a long way to go," Sebelius wrote. "We have the responsibility to act and do something to prevent our youth from smoking. The prosperity and health of our nation depend on it."

Christopher Hansen, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) agreed.

 

"Combating tobacco use requires a multi-pronged approach that includes strong federal regulation, higher tobacco excise taxes, comprehensive smoke-free laws, sustained public education campaigns, school-based policies and programs, and strong tobacco prevention and cessation programs," Hansen said in a press release.

The surgeon general's report comes a week after a federal judge ruled that requiring cigarette packages to carry graphic health warnings on their labels is a violation of the tobacco companies' First Amendment rights.

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About the Author
63 years old. 20 year smoker. 11 Years FREE! Diagnosed with COPD. Choosing a Quality LIFE! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. -Galatians 5:1