FAQ on Smoking and Health (Part III)




artistic cigarette

12. How widely is smoking spread among youngsters nowadays?

Unfortunately, tobacco consumption in different forms, particularly smoking cigarettes and cigars and, more recently, using snuff and chewing tobacco, remains widely spread among youth. In the US, roughly one third of all high school students, as well as about one tenth of all middle school students, either smoke cigarettes or consume smokeless tobacco products. An alarming fact is that almost 10 percent of smoking young people have tried their first cigarette under the age of 11. A whopping 80 percent of all middle-aged smokers have started using tobacco in their high school age.

Smoking cigarettes remains the most popular form of tobacco consumption among American youth, especially white high school students. Students belonging to other ethnic groups, particularly Hispanics and African Americans, have a slightly higher proportion of using tobacco in the forms other than smoking cigarettes, in comparison with white students.

Smoking cigars is also popular among youngsters, with more than 15 percent of young people, especially black middle and high school students, using them on a regular basis. Boys are also considerably more inclined to smoking cigars than girls.

Smokeless tobacco is becoming increasingly popular among high school youth, particularly white male students - almost 10 percent of them have reported regular use of different forms of smokeless tobacco.

Such high percentage of smoking youth represents a danger for non-smoking students, as well, because they are systematically exposed to second-hand smoke from their smoking friends. About 50 percent of high school non-smokers have reported a regular exposure to environmental tobacco smoke.

Every day, more than 6,000 school students try to smoke a cigarette and roughly half of them are in real danger to become regular smokers. Currently, approximately five million American persons under the age of 17 carelessly expose themselves to numerous dangers of tobacco consumption.

13. Is smoking really a killer?

Worldwide, more than four million people fall succumb to tobacco-induced diseases, especially lung cancer. In the US, about one in every six deaths is caused by smoking. Over 400,000 American people die annually due to tobacco use. It is estimated that an average smoker is in danger to die a decade younger than a non-smoker.

14. How high is tobacco consumption in the US?

Statistics show that, currently, more than 24 percent of all Americans, or a bit less than 50 million people, use tobacco products, mainly in the form of smoking cigarettes, with men smoking slightly more than women (26 percent of smokers among the male American population against 22 percent of smokers among the female American population). More educated people, as well as Pacific Islanders, Asians, and Hispanics, tend to smoke less than people with lower levels of education and those belonging to other ethnic groups, including whites.

15. Why do many young people start smoking at all?

The most common age to start smoking is between 13 and 18. Since young people are more influenced by advertising and peer pressure, as well as more inclined to experimenting with new sensations, they often tend to try tobacco early in life and eventually “get hooked” on nicotine. Tobacco industry exploits psychological vulnerabilities of young people by portraying smoking cigarettes as a cool, glamorous, and prestigious adult habit.

Composed by staff writers

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Posted on March 21, 2008 
Filed Under Facts on Smoking, Smoking and Health, Smoking and Youth

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