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Puffing Up
Taking a Stand on Youth Cigarette Smoking
By Shel Franco
In 2005, 2.4 percent of 12- or 13-year-olds, 9.2 percent of 14- or 15-year-olds and 20.6 percent of 16- or 17-year-olds were current cigarette smokers.
If you find these results from the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health alarming, then you're not alone. If these trends continue, millions of these people will eventually die from a disease attributed to smoking. Will your preteen be one of them?
Absolutely not, you might say. After all, isn't 10 to 12 years old a bit young to be worried about smoking? Isn't that a "teen issue"?
Hardly. Just ask Marie*, whose 11-year-old was caught smoking in the ladies' room at an after school function. "I thought I would die of embarrassment – that was my first reaction," says the Syracuse, N.Y., mother of two. "Then I had to figure out just how seriously my husband and I were going to handle the whole ordeal. It's the hardest parenting issue I've confronted so far."
How major? According to the National Institutes of Health, the peak years for trying to smoke are between the ages of 11 and 12, with a considerable number starting even sooner.
That's bad news. Further research shows that trying cigarettes this young puts kids at a higher risk for becoming regular smokers and makes it much harder to quit. Even more frightening, a younger onset of smoking means a higher risk of contracting lung cancer or a plethora of other adult health problems.