Why Teens Smoke
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Across America, tobacco companies are rubbing their palms together at the idea of more than 3,000 teens lighting up for the first time, eventually becoming regular smokers. That's more than one million new smokers a year.1 It is now common knowledge that smoking causes serious health risks, including lung cancer and emphysema; all the information is on the label. Teens rarely think of the long term consequences of smoking, but more immediate and perhaps more important to them is the fact that tobacco makes your clothes, hair and breath reek and your teeth yellow. Teen years are turbulent enough, and the struggle to be 'attractive', 'popular' or even 'fit in' is sometimes difficult. The effects of tobacco hardly make one attractive, and if appearances are so important, why do teens smoke?
A reason that teens smoke is social pressure. According to the Department of Health and Human Resources, a major factor that influences teens to start smoking is "having friends who smoke and having a best friend who smokes". A teen's major concern is appearing cool, so if their best friend picks up their pack of Camels and offers them one, chances are they aren't going to say no. Unfortunately, this sometimes leads to a life of servitude to the power of nicotine...