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New research suggests first cigarettes may be
enough to addict some teens
HELEN BRANSWELL
Canadian Press
Monday, September 15, 2003
TORONTO (CP) - Smoking a first cigarette is often seen as a rite of passage, the act of an adolescent trying on the habits of adulthood.
But that first cigarette could be the one that enslaves, turning a teen or a pre-teen into a nicotine addict, a new study suggests.
The study challenges the accepted wisdom that it takes two to three years of regular smoking to turn someone into a hooked smoker, suggesting
instead that for some young people, addiction sets in from the earliest stealthy, sputtering drags off a cigarette.
"This kind of research
suggests that first cigarette in the mouth, if you have these vulnerabilities - psychosocial, psychological, or neurophysiological or biochemical - you can
be getting addicted almost immediately," said lead author Jennifer O'Loughlin, a McGill University epidemiologist who studies tobacco use among
children and teenagers.
That means smoking prevention campaigns, which are largely aimed at helping teenagers withstand peer pressure to smoke,
need to be rethought, said O'Loughlin, who admitted she's beginning to doubt whether prevention efforts can work.
"This research
demonstrates why the stop-smoking message doesn't always get through to teens who have started smoking," said Cheryl Moyer, director of cancer
control programs for the Canadian Cancer Society. "Their physical addiction can be a stronger influence than peer pressure. This will be a great help in
developing more effective smoking cessation programs for kids."
The article, by a team from McGill, Montreal's public health
department, the University of Toronto and the University of Massachusetts, is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The research was
funded by the National Cancer Institute of Canada, which is the research arm of the cancer society.
It is based on data drawn from an ongoing,
long-term study of more than 1,200 Montreal-area teenagers, recruited when they were in Grade 7 and aged 12 or 13. The participants are now 16 and 17 years
old.
Several times a year the students fill in questionnaires asking whether they have used tobacco and, if so, how much; whether they crave
cigarettes when they're not smoking, or whether they feel compelled to smoke when others around them light up. The questions are designed to determine if
they are experiencing symptoms of tobacco dependence and to see whether that had an impact on whether teens who experiment with cigarettes progress to become
smokers.
Participants are divided into several categories: triers, who have had very little experience with tobacco; sporadic smokers, who smoke
the equivalent of a cigarette every two weeks; monthly smokers, who smoke at least once a month; weekly smokers, who go through 10 cigarettes a week; and
daily smokers, who average 5½ cigarettes a day.
None of the triers showed signs of dependence. But among even sporadic smokers, three per
cent demonstrated dependence. That figure rose to 4.6 per cent among monthly smokers and 19.4 per cent among weekly smokers. Two-thirds of daily smokers were
dependent on tobacco.
The researchers have blood samples for all the participants and are also looking to see whether some people are just wired
to become tobacco addicts if they start to smoke. "I think we are going to find that genetics does have a role in these things as far as dictating the
metabolism and the processing of nicotine through the brain," O'Loughlin said.
The scientific literature on smoking among adolescents
suggests environmental factors - whether one's parents or friends smoke - generally dictate whether a young person will begin and continue to smoke.
"The environmental influences, the social influences of parents and (peer) pressure - we can't ignore them, because that gives kids access
and it teaches them how to smoke," said O'Loughlin, who noted enjoying smoking is a learned behaviour. "Kids don't pick up a cigarette and
naturally like this habit.
"But what this research is suggesting," she continued, "is that the neurophysiologicial, biological
mechanisms underlying the metabolism of nicotine in kids might be more important."
The article comes on the heels of the publication last
week of a study by U.S. researchers that suggested something about the way nicotine acts in the adolescent brain may make teenagers particularly vulnerable
to long-term addiction.
The research, done in mice, showed that those first exposed to nicotine in adolescence self-administered nicotine at
twice the rate of mice that were first exposed as adults.
"The results indicate that early nicotine exposure can leave a lasting imprint on
the brain," said co-author Edward Levin, a researcher at Duke University's Nicotine Research Center.
"The brain continues to
develop throughout the teenage years. Early nicotine use may cause the wiring of the brain to proceed inappropriately. In essence, the brains of adolescents
who use tobacco may be sculpted around an addiction to nicotine."
© Copyright 2003 The
Canadian Press
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