Decline In Teen Smoking Stalls [View All]

[The Straight Story]

Decline In Teen Smoking Stalls

(CNN) -- The steady decline in teen smoking has stalled.

According to "Monitoring the Future," the University of Michigan's annual survey of the nation's adolescents, in 2006, about one-fifth of U.S. high school seniors smoked at least monthly, down from more than a third who did so in 1996. But in the past few years, that figure has not continued its steady drop.

...

A few studies in countries where such warnings are already required have found that these labels may help motivate adult smokers who already want to quit. But there is no evidence that they will prevent teenagers from taking up the habit, and there are many reasons to think that they will not work. American teenagers well understand the risks of smoking and know that it has harmful long-term health consequences.

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The surest way to accomplish this is by raising the minimum legal purchase age for tobacco to 21. Currently, most states set this age at 18. (A small handful, as well as a few counties in New York, set it at 19.) The problem with the current arrangement is that it virtually guarantees that cigarettes will make their way into the hands of younger teenagers, with whom 18-year-olds regularly socialize.

http://www.clickorlando.com/health/27586171/detail.html

Teens drink, have sex, smoke cigs, use pot

Raising the age and warning labels won't stop (and as noted in the article there are already classes in school about smoking) and telling teens something is bad for them does not appear to make a big difference (for some).

Rebelling, it's what some teens do.