From Science Daily - Teens Who Feel Relaxed After First Cigarette More Likely To Get Hooked

Adolescents who felt relaxed when first exposed to nicotine from a cigarette were more likely to get hooked, new study shows

Following up on studies that have indicated the speed with which adolescents can get hooked on cigarettes, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School have conducted the first study to determine why some adolescents who try smoking get addicted while others do not.

"We know that nicotine can have an immediate impact on the brain, and yet we also know that not every adolescent who tries a cigarette gets hooked," said the study's lead author, Joseph R. DiFranza, MD, professor of family medicine & community health at UMMS. "We wanted to know what accounts for the difference in vulnerability among adolescents who pick up that first cigarette."

While personality factors often determine which young people will try smoking, it appears that it is the manner in which the brain reacts to nicotine, rather than personality, that is most important to determining whether an adolescent will become hooked on nicotine once he or she has tried it. "It appears that it is an addictive physiology and not an addictive personality that determines who will become dependent," observed Dr. DiFranza.

The four-year prospective study was based on over 12,000 interviews with 1,246 sixth-graders in public schools in six Massachusetts communities. Researchers assessed 46 risk factors in categories such as personality, attitudes and beliefs about smoking, smoking by parents, siblings and peers, family and community involvement, and reactions to inhaling from a cigarette for the first time. When all factors were considered together, an experience of relaxation in response to the first dose of nicotine was the strongest predictor of future addiction.

Other factors that predicted addiction were familiarity with the cigarette advertising character Joe Camel, a novelty-seeking personality, and a depressed mood. "These findings underscore our belief that the development of dependence is triggered by the changes in brain chemistry that follow the very first dose of nicotine," said DiFranza.

The study was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and appears in the October 1 issue of the Journal of Pediatrics. According to the National Institutes of Health, smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, accounting for approximately 440,000 deaths annually.

Find Article Here

You Can Be a Part of Blogging History.

"On September 27th, join 1,000s of bloggers around the world in BlogCatalog's Blogging for a Great Cause Challenge.This Blogging Challenge will be:

Bloggers Against Abuse
September 27th, 2007 The Outcome we are after is to be part of the largest group of bloggers to ever blog about an important cause, all on the same day.

So how do you participate?

On Sept. 27th, blog about putting an end to some sort of Abuse (you decide what kind of abuse to blog about).

In the meantime though,

* Spread the word among all the bloggers you know. Perhaps even give them a link to this Discussion. "

I'm in - how about you?

The abuse of our children - and all the world's children are our children - by Big Tobacco comes to mind...

My previous posts on this topic

50 Irish Kids Every Day of the Year

yet this woman, and millions like her, remain targets

Ah, Ms. Lozano, I'll bet your mother is proud...

Whatever your blog's topic is, please join this challenge, uniting with other bloggers to help increase awareness and make the world a safer place.

50 Irish Kids Every Day of the Year

Ban On 10-packs Of Cigarettes Comes Into Force
From ireland.com
Thursday, 31st May, 2007

The abolition of 10-packs of cigarettes from today will help stop children experimenting with smoking, Minister for State Sean Power has told a conference in Dublin.
The one-day Office of Tobacco Control (OTC) conference, "Children, Youth and Tobacco: Causes, Consequences and Action", coincides with the World Health Organization's "World No Tobacco Day" and is exploring ways to curb the high numbers of young Irish people experimenting with tobacco.

Mr Power, Minister for State at the Department of Health and Children, said that Ireland's banning of 10 packs and any confectionery that resembles cigarettes will help prevent children from taking up smoking.
"The majority of smokers become addicted in their childhood and teenage years, and research has clearly shown that price is an important factor in young people deciding not to smoke," he said.

It is estimated 16 per cent of Ireland's young people between the ages of 12 and 17 are regular smokers.
A 2006 OTC study found that 78 per cent of smokers began smoking before age 18 and that 53 per cent began before age 15.

Today's conference is the first of its kind in Ireland and features speeches from world experts on the tobacco industry and tobacco control.. Speaking before the conference opening, Prof Kenneth Warner, dean of public health at the University of Michigan, said the tobacco industry loses over 8,000 customers a year because of people quitting and a further 5,700 who die from smoking-related illness.
"Therefore, for the industry to simply maintain the size of its customer base in Ireland, over 50 Irish kids have to start smoking every day of the year."

Prof Warner said that the banning of "kiddie packs" is just one step of many that needed to be taken. Research in the United States has shown that young people are particularly susceptible to marketing practices such as point-of-sale display in shops and product placement in films and television shows. Ireland has adopted legislation that would prevent point of sale advertising, but it is yet to be implemented.

Health chiefs at today's conference will also be looking at the effects of active and passive smoking. The event at Croke Park is being chaired by Dr Fenton Howell, director of public health, HSE Dublin North-East, and 12 experts, including Prof Luke Clancy of the Research Institute for a Tobacco Free Society.

This Article was provided by Michael McGloin of Ireland.
Please visit his very impressive website at http://www.copdsupport.ie/

Ah, Ms. Lozano, I'll bet your mother is proud...

A New Camel Brand Is Dressed to the Nines
THE next time R. J. Reynolds Tobacco asks smokers to walk a mile for a Camel, watch how many of them are in high heels.
Reynolds, eager to increase the sales of its fast-growing Camel brand among women, is introducing a variety aimed at female smokers.
Read the rest of the story by clicking here


After being diagnosed with COPD, many people talk about feeling ashamed, blaming themselves for smoking and for the disease. Often families follow suit, perhaps from a need to blame someone rather than facing their own feelings about their loved one's illness. Society certainly blames the victim, calling COPD a "self-inflicted" disease or a disease "of lifestyle".
Cigarette smoking is indisputably a causative factor in developing COPD. There are almost certainly other factors - most smokers do not develop COPD and even fewer develop emphysema - but I haven't met anyone that was a smoker and developed COPD who doesn't credit smoking for contributing to his or her disease.
We smoked, we read the warning labels on the pack, we heard what the surgeon general had to say.
We smoked.
End of story.

But it's the beginning of the story that also needs to be told.
Most of us started smoking a highly addictive product when we were in high school (or younger). This is not an age group known for its far sightedness or mature decision making skills.
We were tricked.
Conned, manipulated, marketed, targeted - call it what you will - we were lured into an addiction that we would not be likely to break.
We paid the price, we're still paying the price.
What is very, very sad - and shameful - here is a place to lay blame - is that young people are still being stalked by Big Tobacco.
I don't believe a woman of thirty is going to look at this lovely pink package of death and decide that now would be a good time to start smoking.
It will be a high school (or younger) girl wanting to be cool, or sexy, or hot or whatever the package successfully represents to her.
She will be the one in the pretty pink snare.

yet this woman, and millions like her, remain targets

5% Reduction in Smoking Could Save 100 Million Lives

A 5 percent worldwide reduction in the number of smokers by 2020 would save at least 100 million lives, according to a study by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden.

Currently, about 25 percent of adults (one billion people) in the world are smokers. Reducing that to 20 percent can be achieved by increasing tobacco taxes, expanding smoke-free zones, banning tobacco advertising, and helping people kick the habit, said the study. It noted that a number of countries have already cut adult smoking levels to less than 20 percent, Agence France-Presse reported.

Special focus must be made on educating smokers and would-be smokers in developing nations about the dangers of tobacco, Bloomberg and Frieden said. They pointed out that two-thirds of smokers live in 15 low- or middle-income nations and that 50 percent live in just five countries -- China, India, Russia, Indonesia and Bangladesh.

"Keeping rates low is especially important for the large population of young women in Asia and elsewhere who do not currently smoke but are targeted by the tobacco industry," according to the study, which was published Friday in The Lancet medical journal.

Bloomberg is an ex-smoker who spent $125 million of his own money to start a Worldwide Stop Smoking Initiative last year, AFP reported.