Teens And Smoking

By Author: Danny Ang
Total Articles: 77
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Our children are bombarded with advertising for sugary cereals and plastic toys that cost far too much and break far too soon. A recently released memo from Big Tobacco indicates that they wanted to bombard them with cigarette ads as well- on an ice cream truck. I swear to you, as a mother, I would chase that truck down the road, rip off the offending signs and then throttle the driver with my own two hands. No ifs, no ands or buts about it. It is hard enough to keep our kids from smoking, they do not need any additional pressure from the Good Humor man.

Every day over one thousand youths become daily smokers. Those are the children ages 13-17, and they will make a choice that will take them the rest of their lives to escape. Tragic. You can lecture them, threaten them, beg and plead with them not to do it, but sometimes nothing will ever work. You just have to know that you did your very best not to let these kids kill themselves. And that is exactly what is happening. For every three children that take up this nasty habit, one will eventually die of a tobacco related illness. One out of every three.

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... One out of every three of these smokers begin before the age of fourteen and 80% of them will start before the age of 18. Almost all smokers start before age 20- the saying goes if you have not started by the time you are 20, you never will, but that is not always true. But, there are enough youth smokers to wonder what else can be done to stop them from ever starting in the first place? It is already a crime to sell cigarettes to children under the age of 18. It is unlawful for the kids to possess them. But they still manage to get their grubby little mitts on them and they puff away in school bathrooms, behind sheds and during their paper routes. I know that some parents would prefer to think that it is easier to just allow their children to smoke, but if you will not stick to your guns on this issue, which one will they push for next?

It is nearly ten percent of middle school aged children who smoke, that number more than doubles once they get to high school. But, 63% of high school aged smokers would like to quit- but how exactly do you reach out for help quitting something you are not supposed to be doing anyway? Asking for help means admitting that you not only smoke but that it has become a problem for you and that is hard enough for adults, can you imagine how devastating that could be for a child?

We all need to figure out ways to keep our children from ever taking up this horrible and deadly habit. It should be nearly impossible for kids to get hold of cigarettes in any way- We need more education on the topic, possibly with a more graphic demonstration of what cigarettes actually do to the human body. And we need to find a way to allow those who are already trapped in nicotine's web to escape without fear of repercussion. We need non smoking kids; we need healthy, happy, non smoking kids.
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