Smoking addiction rates remain very high among adolescents. Although the causes of these high figures are not clear, it may be that the feeling of better managing anxiety, social and cultural pressure and the lack of awareness of a direct detrimental effect on health could be some of the reasons why adolescents, despite years of anti-smoking campaigns, continue to smoke.
The reasons are becoming less and less clear
According to the ‘Estudes’ survey conducted in 2019, when adolescents were asked, the vast majority did not have a clear answer, although they knew how to answer why they started smoking. Almost always the answer was curiosity. And then, they did not know how to argue why they were still doing it. At the same time, they also agreed that they started smoking before the age of 14, a precocious age, although it is within the average age of debut in tobacco consumption in Spain, according to the ‘Estudes’ survey, and that sometimes they smoke two packs per week.
A few years ago, the number of people who started smoking had decreased, but in the last five years, the trend has changed again, marking a new upturn. The reasons why this trend is booming again may be diverse, but they may have been influenced by changes in the way tobacco is presented by the industry. In addition, it is also directly related to the increase in the use of roll-your-own tobacco, which is understood among younger people to be much more rebellious than smoking industrial tobacco.
New methods of access and consumption
In 2019, 48% of students between the ages of 14 and 18, claimed to have tried the electronic cigarette compared to 20.1% in 2016, according to the ‘Estudes’ surveys conducted in the respective years. This method of consumption is becoming more and more common among young people, especially in adolescence, as it is considered a new, more efficient way to access tobacco without having the bad image that industrial tobacco can have.
This new method of access is increasingly common among younger people, as it has also been sold as a healthier method of consuming tobacco without burning it, but they are still just as harmful and all they do is make those who do not habitually consume tobacco now do so.
The consumer profile gap evens out
According to these same studies (Estudes, 2019), more than half of young consumers, 56.3% between 14 and 18 years old, were girls. It is understood that they tend to be earlier to engage in this type of behavior than boys, who are still more focused on sports, which makes them want to stop smoking. But this difference is becoming smaller and smaller and the gap between the sexes is becoming more equal, since girls start earlier, but boys also stay once they start. Because we must not forget that tobacco hooks and although they may take longer to use it, it is more difficult to quit. Tobacco is made up of additive substances that make it penetrate further into the lungs, creating an addiction that is difficult to quit.
The role of parents in the consumption of their children
According to the Estudes survey, 35.1% of parents with smoking children allowed them to smoke at home, and 41% of this percentage lived in households where the adults were also smokers. This is why it is much more complicated to prohibit children from smoking when their parents also smoke, although some of them prohibit smoking at home. Even with this premise, parents continue to play a fundamental role in the consumption of tobacco by adolescents and the most important thing is the information they can provide them with, such as a list of advantages and disadvantages to motivate them to stop.
A common fear among parents
The main fear that many parents have when they learn that their teenagers have started smoking is the fact that they will also get hooked on other types of illegal drugs. It is well known that tobacco consumption is not a direct consequence of the subsequent consumption of other types of drugs. What usually has a direct relationship is the consumption of tobacco with the idea of relaxation or anxiety management. This is nothing more than a myth, since the only thing that occurs when consuming tobacco is the lowering of nicotine levels, which the body understands as a greater state of relaxation.
Anti-smoking campaigns, a failure?
In Spain there have been years and years of campaigns against tobacco and its consumption, and neither they nor education in schools have been able to curb consumption among adolescents. This type of campaign seems to be outdated, since smoking does not make you realize that you are seriously damaging your health and, surely, it would be much more useful to take into account the cause and effect to give credibility to this type of project. They could be campaigns more focused on the harm caused by the tobacco industry creating an addictive substance so that you consume more and pay more taxes or simply based on solidarity giving to know the power of making decrease the collective problems generated by consuming.