Early-Age Smoking, Research Paper Example

The problem I have chosen to identify is that of early-age smoking, specifically the smoking of tobacco cigarettes. My thesis is that young smokers are more affected psychologically by smoking than adult smokers are.

The idea of smoking at all is, at first thought, so obviously a bad one that most people wouldn’t do it even if tobacco were free. That one must also pay well for the stuff makes the practice seem all the more an affront to common sense, especially since the physical effects of smoking are so well known scientifically and so widely publicized. We need not be physicians to know that inhaling smoke into one’s mouth, throat, esophagus, and lungs just cannot be a good idea, not even once. But to do it regularly would seem to be deliberate suicide. When confronting the practice for the first time as children, we ask ourselves: will I or won’t I? Why then does anybody say I will? The reason must be that they think they see some kind of benefit.

In the case of tobacco, the physical benefit is nicotine and nothing else. It has been said that without nicotine, tobacco smokers would just as soon blow bubbles. Nicotine is what first makes smokers sick, and then what addicts them. It does the same thing to the insect larvae that feed on tobacco leaves in the field. When tobacco is placed in the form of cigarettes, the problem is compounded, because now they become lifestyle props and fashion statements. They permit certain mannerisms unavailable to non-smokers, and they become a part of who the smoker is. Cigarettes then are a problem with two parts: physical and psychological. For the very young, cigarettes complement and strengthen their sense of who they are and addict them mentally and physically early. For adults, cigarettes do little or nothing for their identity. They are just physically hooked and want to quit, or, like the singer Joni Mitchell, are hooked and unapologetically enjoy it and indulge in it in the close presence of others (McCormick, 2007).

Gathering the data on the physical effects of smoking on young people is easy: it is essentially the same for them as for everyone else, and much research has been done on that subject for decades. The mechanism is known: nicotine quickly travels to the brain when smoked. It then releases adrenaline, the fight-or-flight hormone that increases blood-pressure and heart rate; limits the release of the hormone insulin, which leaves the blood stream higher in sugar than it ordinarily would be, thus dampening appetite; and releases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that increases feeling of pleasure and well-being (Martin, 2012).

It is not completely known how substantially different for young people these reactions are from adults. It is thought because both the brain and body are still developing, they are more susceptible, meaning that for a given dose, the drugs are effectively more powerful for the young. We do know that the young are more likely to find themselves in situations that either require adrenaline or produce dopamine. Natural adrenaline junkies, young people tend to experience fears and pleasures more readily than their adult counterparts and are more open to enjoying the physical effects of those emotions. If they can get those effects from a cigarette, then so be it. As for the insulin deprivation, we can immediately see why the appetite-dampening effect would appeal to teenage girls, who are constantly bombarded with body images that require them to be thin. If smoking a cigarette will help them stay thin, then so be it too.

Smoking is itself a part of the problem because it is such an efficient delivery mechanism. After one puff, nicotine will arrive at the brain within seven to ten seconds. As tools to quit smoking, nicotine delivery-systems other than smoking are notoriously ineffective, from nicotine gum to patches. According to one source, 7% of those using such methods have a chance of quitting smoking after six months, and almost 37% of nicotine gum users are “chronic, long-term users” (Polito, 2012). Since nicotine itself is still a poison, so such methods are not free of risk.

Today most young people know that cigarettes can be and often will be lethal. But that lethality is a long time coming. That is key. It is not really possible for the young to connect for very long a theoretical distant future with their own very real present. It may be that the ability to do so defines as well as anything the true mental difference between an adult and a child or young teenager. For those so young, to think about that future person is to think about someone else, not themselves. Also, even when parents are long-time smokers and trying to quit, the true depth and meaning of physical addiction will be unknown to their children. “Addiction” is just a word for them, and brings to mind their own “addiction” to, say, Cokes and video games.

Cigarette tobacco contains more than just nicotine (which by itself is not carcinogenic). There are varying amounts of (among thousands of other chemicals) acetaldehyde, acetone, acrolein, acrylonitrile, aminonaphthalene, ammonia, benzene, benzo[a]pyrene, 1,3-butadiene, butyraldehyde, cadmium, carbon monoxide, catechol, chromium, cresol, crotonaldehyde, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide, hydroquinone, isoprene, lead, methyl ethyl ketone, nickel, nitric oxide, phenol, propionaldehyde, pyridine, quinoline, resorcinol, styrene, and toluene (Student Guide). The body can deal with them in very trace amounts, but not if they accumulate.

We can conclude that, to a large extent, early-age smoking is a part of the larger social problem of not only drug addiction among young people in general, but of air pollution as well. Nicotine is a drug, and a highly addictive one. The fact that it is legal for those over 18 years of age while other addictive and recreational drugs are illegal for everyone is irrelevant from the point of view of a chemical’s action on the body. Yet as a society we are reluctant to face up to the fact that tobacco is a drug — or at least contains a drug — in the very same sense that heroin is a drug. Both are highly addictive, and both, once ingested, do not necessarily bar the user from engaging in the same kinds of activities as they do when not under the influence of that drug, from driving a car to working a job to going to school and taking a test. Consider alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and other recreational by contrast. It is just that heroin is illegal for everyone outside of a therapeutic pain-control hospital setting and tobacco is illegal only for minors.

Air pollution from cigarette smoking may also be significant, and is called environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), or more commonly second hand smoke. Experts have long and strongly disagreed as to just how important a problem this really is (Armentano, 1998), but we can at least agree in principle that the more fresh air, the better. This relates to young smokers in a particular way: because smoking by minors is banned, they often end up smoking in small, more confined spaces, such as cars and basement “clubhouses” to avoid detection. Even if that space is outside, if it is small and not properly ventilated there may be heightened levels of second-hand smoke (although in such settings, most if not all of those present likely will be actively smoking — that often being the reason for gathering together in the first place).

The mechanism of smoking itself a fundamental problem in a way other than as an efficient delivery-system for nicotine. We can see how by asking ourselves why the young people who will become tomorrow’s adult nicotine addicts don’t just start off with nicotine gum or patches? It would have the same effects (although the dose would be slower in arriving at the brain). This may in fact happen — some teens just use nicotine gum to get their buzz (Seith, 2003). But that is a very small part of the problem of nicotine addiction. Why? Because gum and patches are inherently private forms of use. Smoking is public, and the practice of it amounts to a personal form of public theater. And increasingly, it is exclusive. It is a club fewer and fewer people, young or adult, can bring themselves to join. Yet this is inherently attractive to certain kinds of very young people (and certain kinds of adults), for whom public defiance is vital. When defiance isn’t wanted, then acceptance by those who defy is. If a young teen’s friends smoke, then smoking becomes a way of fitting in. And finally, smoking gives young, socially awkward persons in socially awkward situations something to do with their hands. It makes them busy when there is nothing else to do but feel embarrassed about something they have done, or are about to do, or try to do or say. A piece of gum or a patch just isn’t the same. (Nicotine gum isn’t chewed like regular gum, but rather stored in the mouth like a lozenge, affecting speech.)

Even adults who try to quit cigarettes have a problem dispensing with the hand-movements that come with smoking. But they at least do not consider such mannerisms an integral part of who they are. But those very mannerisms are one of the reasons that the youngest smokers got started in the first place. They think it makes them look older and more sophisticated (Nicotine) and they become a part of a young person’s personality. So we can see that for adults trying to quit, the problem is mostly a physical one: the problem of nicotine withdrawal. Their own brains, acting treasonously as saboteurs and agent provocateurs of the tobacco companies and their advertisers, will play the most amazing games with adult quitters, telling them that they really want to smoke even when they know perfectly well that they do not really want to smoke. But again, the problem of who they are will not be a part of the problem, or at least will not be as big a part of the problem as the one that much younger smokers face. Far from relishing the would-be sophisticated hand-and-wrist dance that comes with lighting and manipulating a cigarette, older smokers will know those maneuvers for what they are: stupid and habit-forming gestures that only serve to make it harder for them to quit.

The psychological effects of smoking are radically different for the young because the young are necessarily just starting to smoke. For them, overcoming the hurdles to becoming a smoker is the challenge. They’ve got to find ways to pay for it and hide it without hiding it too much. After all, the point is to become known as a smoker by being seen smoking — seen by the right people, that is. Once that has been accomplished, and their parents are either routinely and safely deceived or they have accepted the reality of their child’s being a smoker, then the young smoker’s problems will mainly be financial. Cigarettes are expensive in high-tax states and cities, and so many young smokers will find a black-market vendor. So will many adults, and this makes it easier for that vendor to diversify into becoming a seller of other drugs as well.

Once these young smokers are truly hooked, they may not feel the negative effects of smoking for years. A 15-year-old may smoke daily for ten years or more before even the cosmetic damage of bad skin, bad gums, and bad teeth begin to show, and smoker’s breath in a sufficiently attractive person can be overlooked. The more serious damage to the lungs, heart, and brain may not begin for another twenty years, which is why it is almost never too late to quit.

The fundamental psychological consequence of identifying as a smoker, of living that life, is made too early for those that start too young. Those who start at twenty-five already have identities as on-smokers. Changing that perception is rarely successful for someone that age or older, and so they rarely become hooked. But starting as a young teen, a person’s self-identity is changing anyway, from child to adult. If, along with that normal chronological change, comes another one that is physically addicting, one that brought with it a new set of shared friends and mannerisms, then dropping that sense of identity will not often be successful. We may conclude that environment is the determining factor in who will start to smoke, and when. Environment will form who you are, and if the environment is bad, an early change is essential. Those changes are rarely forthcoming for those who need them. For people to change as adults means to change who they are and what they are. It can be done, but for many the price of that change is too high.

References

Armentano, D. T. (1998, September 28). The Second Hand Smoke Charade. Retrieved from Cato Institute: http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/secondhand-smoke-charade

Martin, T. (2012, December 23). About.com. Retrieved from Smoking Cessation: http://quitsmoking.about.com/od/nicotine/a/nicotineeffects.htm

McCormick, N. (2007, October 7). Joni Mitchell: Still Smoking. Retrieved from The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3668299/Joni-Mitchell-still-smoking.html

Nicotine. (n.d.). Retrieved from Drug Facts for Young People: http://drugfacts4youngpeople.com/drug-nicotine

Polito, J. R. (2012, November 3). Nicotine Addiction 101. Retrieved from WhyQuit.com: http://whyquit.com/whyquit/linksaaddiction.html

Seith, R. (2003, July 23). Misusing Nicotine Patches. Retrieved from Connect With Kids: http://www.connectwithkids.com/tipsheet/2003/134_jul23/patch.html

Student Guide: Health Problems on the Job. (n.d.). Retrieved from State Building & Construction Council of California: http://www.sbctc.org/pdf/studentguide.pdf The non-smoking author of this paper is indebted to his father, who himself began smoking as a child, for some of the unreferenced insights found in this paper.