Smoking

As the nation's leading cause of death, smoking is one of the most prevalent health problems in our society. Recent cigarette advertisement campaigns have targeted women, and current statistics show that eighth grade girls are just as likely as eighth grade boys to be smokers. Approximately 4.5 million children between the ages of twelve and seventeen currently smoke, and, according to the Monitoring the Future Survey, the percentage of both eighth grade boys and girls who smoke is nearly 10% for each gender. The typical teenage smoker has low self-esteem, is more predisposed to be a risk-taker, has lower educational aspirations and comes from an environment in which family members and friends are also smokers. Girls tend to smoke for social reasons and to control their weight.

It is estimated that 70% of kids try smoking at some point, 40% of them are younger than high school age. Cigarettes are highly addictive. Approximately one third of all young people who experiment with smoking cigarettes wind up being addicted to them by the age of twenty. As reported in "Straight Facts About Drugs and Alcohol" by the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information, there are some 4,000 chemicals in cigarette smoke, 200 of which are known poisons.

Teens who attempt to quit smoking are often faced with having to cope with the many unpleasant and painful symptoms associated with withdrawal, including anxiety, nausea, fatigue, irritability, headaches, as well as changes in heart rate, body temperature, appetite and digestion. Since most medical aids for quitting smoking are not available to minors, many teen smokers resume smoking again shortly after trying to quit, thereby deepening their addiction.

In addition to their addictive qualities, cigarettes have numerous negative effects. Among them are: decreased sense of smell and taste, frequent colds, premature and plentiful facial wrinkles, increase in heart rate and blood pressure, heart disease, gastric ulcers, stroke and nearly a dozen different cancers. Clearly, more needs to be done to educate teens about the hazards of smoking, to prevent their addiction to cigarettes and to keep cigarettes out of the hands of our youth.

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What Some of the Girls Said:

• It makes me nauseous.

• Smoking doesn't make you look good.

• I think what we're trying to focus on here is why are kids buying cigarettes. Why is teenage smoking so high and you know the consequences and I have no idea because I know most of my friends smoke. I'm sure like over 50% of my school does and you have to wonder why when they know the consequences and I don't think it's just good advertising by the Camel company or Marlboro. Children today are extremely well educated on the dangers of tobacco and marijuana and cocaine and alcohol. But they still choose to do it. And I think the reason why is, the parents smoke, the grandparents smoke, the people on the street smoke and how does our society have a right to tell all the teenagers not to smoke when they're sitting there puffing on it anyway? I mean I don't get that. It's a contradiction; it's a paradox. You can't do that. I mean one more thing my parents and my friend's parents sit there and go "Oh you guys don't smoke it's so bad for you." I mean come on, how are you going to tell us not to when you're sitting there and you know you're the adults, are supposed to be our role models, how are they gonna tell us one thing and do another? It's like they're teasing you.
  
  The reason I think a lot of girls smoke and a lot of boys smoke is because it's if I have this in my hand I'm gonna look so cool, everyone's gonna wanna be my friend. Everybody's gonna want me. I know a lot of my friends have started smoking because of that. It's because they just put it in their hands and they get addicted to it and it's like they can't stop because they look cool, you know, and a lot of girls do it because it keeps their hands busy. They won't wanna eat, they get really skinny and all that and it depends on how they view everybody else and what is cool.

• Kids do not want to look cool. I mean, they want to look cool, but smoking is not the way for that because in my group of friends, all of them smoke. All of them smoke and if we're in a restaurant and some cute guy walks by, they put down their cigarette. They're embarrassed of it. Maybe they start to look cool, but it becomes an extremely embarrassing and disgusting habit after awhile. They sit there and a car will drive by and they'll put their cigarette down. They're on the bus stop and the bus comes and of course you don't want even the bus driver to see your cigarette. What's the bus driver gonna say? Maybe they start to look cool, but then they realize how stupid they look but then they're addicted so they can't stop.

• I have to wonder whether it's an actual physical addiction or if it's a mental addiction and I'm not sure because I tend to say based on seeing my friends that it becomes more of a mental addiction. I think if you can get them hooked for a little while then you've got customers for a long time.

• If you get them hooked when they're, like in ah seventh, eighth grade you will have customers for life. If you get them hooked early.

• I've seen people who had two, three cigarettes in their mouth and they think maybe that would look kind of cool but sometimes they try that and they think well this ain't too bad. They start getting hooked on it and they smoke cigarette after cigarette maybe about two or three packs a day and that's how they get addicted to it. It's a curiosity thing.

• I think a lot of it doesn't start out as much as wanting to look cool. Perhaps you have friends that do it and I think a lot of it starts as a curiosity and something that's wrong. You know, like "I'm getting away with something here. I'm being the little rebel." I think that's how a lot of it starts, unfortunately it may lead to long term.

• I like to smoke cigarettes. I thought that cigarettes would help me stop my depressing days. The first time I smoked cigarettes I thought it was pretty cool. It helped me calm down. I remember the first time I started and I tried it once and I choked on it as usual. Then when I finally got used to it, especially inhaling it and blowing it out, you finally get used to cigarette smoking. Then I kept on smoking for a year and a half now. I keep doing it because I can't stop now. It's a real big habit now for smoking cigarettes because I used to tell you how everybody should know this was like six or seven or eight years old when they say no to drugs and everything. You told yourself I'm not gonna smoke. I'm not gonna drink. You hit fourteen or fifteen, I would like a cigarette. Let me try this and then you really do get addicted.

• When you are in third and fourth grade and you know the people come to your school and you know smoking is bad, this is bad and everybody's like "Oh, I'm not gonna smoke." I wonder who's the one kid who starts it because if I mean, who's the first one that doesn't keep their promise? The entire fourth grade class tells you and swears that they're not gonna smoke and then you see your fourth grade reunion and everybody's coughing. You wonder who starts.

• Nothing really turned me on to smoking. I wouldn't say I'm totally addicted to it, but I mean, both my parents smoke, my entire family smokes. I've grown up around it. I was a smoker before I even was a smoker. I mean all the second hand smoke and it's nothing you really get out, it's just something you do.

• I used to smoke, well I may not be all that with smoking, but you know I used to when I was little. I was in seventh grade. I thought, well, it's cool, you know, I'm gonna do it. I stopped for a minute and I thought well, what's gonna happen to me ten or fifteen years down the line because my parents both are really heavy smokers.

• I have a younger brother and my brother's like fourteen and we live with our grandmother and she found out that he smokes and now she allows him to smoke and I feel like really oddball cause I'm the oldest, I don't smoke, I don't drink. My grandmother smokes, my younger brother smokes. That makes you think there's something wrong with me. I know there's a lot of people that smoke weed or drink, you know, if they don't have that then they'll smoke cigarettes. It's like a substitute and then what happens is that becomes more of addiction to them in a way too. They're going to buy a pack now instead of here and here, you know. They all gotta get a cigarette and you ask them why are you smoking another?

• I think it's kind of hard because you know you hear other people say to teenagers don't smoke it's really bad for you. Years down the road you'll have lung cancer and get really sick and die and like the same people that tell them that are smoking themselves. Teenagers look at them and like why are they trying to tell me this and they still smoking. I mean, they don't care about their life, why are they trying to save mine?

• I don't smoke, you know, I don't wanna smoke. The way I see it, smoking is like being a follower. I mean, yeah it's hard for you not to smoke when someone else smoke around you telling you not to but if you already say like you said, you know the consequences, you saying you wanna go through them consequences you gonna let your curiosity get the best of you. That's why I don't believe in that.

• If teenagers are educated, people are educated. People know about the hazards. I don't know what you can do to stop it because you see kids that are being educated. I mean just like they're educated in every possible thing, they still do it.

• One don't smoke around little kids you know, don't give that message to them, because if you give that message to them then you're just continuing the cycle. Don't let yourself smoke if you don't want to. Don't let yourself come down to peer pressure. If you smoke and I'm not saying that's bad because I really can't say that's bad, I'm just saying don't do it just because other people are doing it. Don't be a follower.

• It's really hard to change other people. All you can hope to do is change yourself, so by doing that maybe you can set an example. I don't think there's any big plan that we can do to stop teenage smoking. I know kids that do it. They know the dangers. I know I have friends who have friends that disapprove of them. They still do it. There's not much that's gonna stop a teenager that thinks they're invincible and nothings gonna happen to them. So all you can do is change yourself.

• I don't think people just pick up a pack of cigarettes just cause they feel they in the mood to start smoking out of nowhere, out of the blue. Out of the blue they get up in the morning, man I ain't never smoked before but today I feel like a good cigarette. They ain't never gonna act like that. They might see image on TV showing a dude that's real cool, got a cigarette in his mouth, got his lady on the other hand, lookin' all cool. Somebody might see that and say, man, if I start smoking, maybe the honey's will want to start getting with me, they'll wanna be on my arm cause I smoke and I look cool. I'm like Joe Camel, I got it goin' on. You know, it's the images in the media and I think that's just what people see. That sometimes influences them to do things like that to themselves.

• On trying to get them to stop, you really can't do anything. Because even if you do show them the picture some of them are gonna go, well I'll try to stop and some of them are gonna go, so? I could die today of a heart attack or something, why would you care?

• When my friends are smoking, I just won't hang around and I'll be like, well, I gotta go do homework and they'll be like, it's the summer, it's the middle of June and I'll be like, well, I'll find something to do. I'll just leave and that gets them annoyed but it's getting me annoyed when they're smoking. They know I don't want to be around them when they smoke.

• You know what I think is cool my dad will smoke like a cigar every once in a while. I was in a restaurant the other day and someone was smoking a cigar and it smelled really yummy.

• That's what makes it look ridiculous, it smells. Well like cigarettes, they bad smell.

• I think smoking is absolutely disgusting. It smells bad, it makes your breath smell bad, it rots your teeth, it ruins you, and people do it, I don't know why they do it. I think it's stupid and my dad smokes and I think that's one of the reasons I'm definitely not gonna smoke. I always worry that one day he's gonna die when I'm not there because he smokes. And my family just has a history of smoking and I don't wanna be a part of that.

• I used to smoke because all my friends did and I thought it was cool. I first got smoking when I was like in like third grade. My older brother, we would used to hide out in the woods and we used to smoke and my mom caught us and she made us smoke a lot.

• I have tried smoking. I never told anyone that before. I tried and I don't like it because I got sick.

• I think smoking is wrong, not only to yourself, because it's ruining other people's environment, too. It's like, you choose to smoke, but I guess you choose for everybody else, too because you ruin their air, too. And so I don't believe in smoking at all. I have never tried smoking and I don't think I ever will because I think it stinks really bad.

• I've smoked cigarettes and I still do. There. I know I'm so young and there's no history of lung cancer in my family so that's like, I'm not really worried about getting cancer.

• I smoked since I was like seven or eight, and I do admit, I did start because everybody else was doing it. And then, well, I've tried to quit but I can't. So I'm just gonna smoke until I'm eighteen, and then try to get professional help.

• I just want to tell everybody, I am not a bad person, just cause I smoke.

• I do smoke, and I know a lot of people smoke. I have tried marijuana, and I've tried drinking, and nothing else besides that. But, I just think it's ridiculous, because kids out age, thirteen, fourteen, are already smoking. Since they were like seven or eight. And it's really stupid that you know little kids can get their hands on that stuff. I'm sure there's a way that we can get cigarettes you know. Adults buying them for other people. They don't have any kind of patches for younger kids. Like nobody else under the age of eighteen smokes.

• All the commercials are like you want to know why I don't smoke; I don't need to smoke to be cool. It's not basically just that. I was influenced by my mom. Basically everyone in my family smokes cigarettes. So, before I start a family or something, I plan to quit so that I don't have to deal with my kid having to smoke. My mom doesn't mind, she said it's your health, you know. You're the one that's ruining your health. She goes, they're not my lungs and I think it would help me more if she was more of like no, don't do it.

• I just think that smoking, I don't do it just to be cool. I've done it since I was twelve years old, so three years. I've tried quitting a couple of times, and I get really crabby. I get headaches and I like to yell a lot when I haven't had one in like the longest time. I don't sneak out of school to go smoke and I don't sit there and lash out in the middle of class if I need nicotine or something. I don't think I'm a drug addict. I know that it's a drug, but I know I'm not gonna get all stupid because I'm smoking. I'm not an alcoholic.

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Beyond the Butterfly is co-produced by Wisconsin Public Television and NEWIST/CESA #7 (Northeastern Wisconsin In-School Telecommunications).