How do we convince young people not to start using tobacco?

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This is the $64,000 question! Each day 3000 American children and adolescents begin the long downhill journey toward addiction, disease and premature disability and death by starting to smoke or use spit tobacco. This number remains frustratingly high, and may actually be increasing in some areas, despite a committment by federal, state and local governments to intervene effectively to help young people resist the blandishments of a predatory tobacco industry. To date such efforts have been largely unsuccessful, because the tobacco industry has been easily able to outspend, with outlays of billions of dollars annually to seduce children into this destructive habit with deceptive ad campaigns.

For the first time, there is light at the end of the tunnel as the serious debate about how to regulate deceptive tobacco advertisments continues in Congress and public venues. Regardless of how this problem is solved (hopefully with a complete ban on all tobacco advertising) we still have to spend a lot of effort and money to effectively communicate with these young people in order to convince them to avoid these lethal products. The so-called "global tobacco settlement" dangles the carrot of billions of dollars before us; badly needed dollars to be spent for primary prevention. This money can more easily be obtained with a large tax increase on each pack of cigarettes, at least $1.50/ pack, or better, $2.00/pack. This would provide adequate money for prevention efforts without any unwarranted concessions to the tobacco industry. If tobacco-money-corrupted politicians can then be restrained from diverting this money away from tobacco control (a difficult task), then there would be adequate funding for a massive national campaign prevent smoking in young people.

A large cigarette tax would also have the immediate beneficial effect of making it difficult for young people to afford to buy tobacco. Good studies have shown that this is an effective way to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked. It is important not to lose sight of the fact that this is the primary goal- to reduce the number of cigarettes smoked

Yet another difficulty is the inadequacy of presently available smoking cessation interventions in young people. Most smoking cessation clinics and programs are directed at adults and not suitable for children and adolescents. Pharmacies are unwilling to sell them nicotine replacement therapy products. Affordability of counseling and nicotine replacement is also problematic.

Even when money is available, the problem still remains as to HOW to accomplish this task. How can one convince a young person not to start smoking, or to stop once he or she has started?

Two recent talks I gave to different age groups in neighboring schools, and many E-mail exchanges with young people writing to this web page, have brought home to me the difficulties of this work. This section of the web page is less an attempt by me to tell you how to effect this communication, than a plea for you to help and tell me how this can be done!

Advertising is an obvious method to reach our TV-fixated youth. Public support of anti-tobacco TV, billboard and magazine advertising appears to be an effective tool, but scientific proof of it's effectiveness is not yet available.

Printed brochures and books directed at young people are problematic. First, they must be age specific, since the reading level and social characteristics of children at different ages are widely different. Second, there has been a reluctance by many publishers to get into an area that they felt was too controversial.

One interesting realization that has arisen out of my experience with this page, and the thousands of E-mail exchanges and forms feedback I have recieved, is that there are large numbers of young people surfing the web for information on tobacco; for school projects; for help with smoking cessation; because of their concern for the health and safety of their loved ones. More than 25% of the E-mail and form responses to this page come from people age 21 and under.

Based on this feedback, I have spent considerable time and effort trying to find tobacco-control information on the WWW that is suitable for young people. I have found that there is a dearth of useful information on these topics suitable for young readers. I am planning to extend the scope of this web page to try and answer part of the need for age-specific and effective communication with young people with the creation of a Young People's Cyber Library of Information on Tobacco and Tobacco Related Health Problems. I would greatly appreciate help and input from my readers in this task. Any links to web sites or references to books, pamphlets, cartoons, video and audio tapes, computer programs or games, or other media directed at young people, on this topic, would be very helpful. In a similar vein, any input from teachers on methods of getting through to young people at varying age levels will be appreciated.