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Kids get hooked on nicotine very quickly and at very low levels of exposure
August 27, 2002Kids get hooked on nicotine with amazing speed and at levels of tobacco that are so low that nobody had even considered it possible, say researchers in Tobacco Control.
To determine how long it takes for kids to get hooked, Joseph DiFranza and colleagues followed 679 seventh grade students (aged 12-13 years) over a period of 30 months. The students were interviewed in great detail eight times over the course of the study.
Among 332 students who had ever tried tobacco, even just a puff, 40% reported symptoms of addiction. Among 237 students who had inhaled, 53% reported symptoms. For teenage girls who got hooked, it only took an average of 3 weeks from when they started to smoke occasionally. Among the boys, half were hooked within 6 months of the start of occasional smoking. "Some of these kids were hooked within a few days of starting to smoke," says Dr DiFranza.
Perhaps even more surprising than the speed with which symptoms of addiction appeared was the very small amount of tobacco required, add the authors. Until now, scientists have always assumed that addiction does not begin until youths are smoking at least ten cigarettes per day, but this study shows that just the opposite is true.
Youths who showed signs of being hooked were smoking an average of only two cigarettes per week, and in two thirds of youths, addiction appeared prior to daily smoking, suggesting that addiction comes before tolerance to nicotine.
The authors coin a new term, "juvenile onset nicotine dependence" to emphasise that children are different from adults when it comes to the effects of nicotine. Because the adolscent brain is still developing, adolescents may be more vulnerable to addiction than adults. The impact of nicotine on the brain is also stronger and longer lasting on adolescents, they suggest.
"Data from human and animal studies leads me to suspect that addiction to nicotine begins, in many cases, with the first cigarette," concludes Dr DiFranza.
British Medical Journal (BMJ)
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