# Why do people start smoking? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 1, 2006, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814 "2006-04-01T04:25:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2019, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/62 "2019-02-20T11:05:15Z")
Sometimes I wish I DID smoke. Then I would quit and like clockwork, put all the money I was not spending on cigs into a savings account. ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/63 "2019-02-21T23:25:01Z")
I’ll propose another reason why people get addicted to smoking: Nicotine is an anti-depressant. I suspect that there are other psycho-active chemicals in tobacco that have similar effects. I know that vaping didn’t “do it” for Bob, but others that’s all they need. I’ll lay odds the people who started smoking and didn’t get addicted weren’t dealing with depression. I wish that the medical community would look at people who are addicted to various chemicals and - instead of pleasure-shaming them - would look at what problems those chemicals might be addressing. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/64 "2019-02-21T23:47:22Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Sometimes I wish I DID smoke. Then I would quit and like clockwork, put all the money I was not spending on cigs into a savings account. But if you quit once, and then put $50/week away, then started up again and quit, would that be _another_ $50/week? Because before too long you wouldn’t be able to afford to quit! ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/65 "2019-02-22T06:27:09Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Given my job, pediatrician, it isn’t too hard. Pretty much that’s the High School smokers now. They vaped first. And still do. > > But better than my word for it is [actual longitudinal data](https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/1/34)). Kids who started out with e-cigs were roughly three times more likely to be smokers a year later than those who did not. That makes complete sense, but I don’t see how it contradicts the statement by a previous poster that there are fewer young people smoking cigarettes than there used to thanks to vaping. If there used to be 20% starting to smoke cigarettes, and now 20% start vaping, and out of them 10% transition to cigarettes, you still have less cigarette smokers than you used to, even though there’s a high correlation between starting to vape and later starting to smoke. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/66 "2019-02-22T07:01:24Z")
I never smokedn tobacco, but pot on the other hand I could get all I wanted to ……oly reason I didn’t become a pot head is most of the ones I knew were beavis and butthead types who spent most of their day trying to get money for pot that and my pain killers were a better buzz anyhow …… and I liked booze better ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/67 "2019-02-22T14:02:22Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > That makes complete sense, but I don’t see how it contradicts the statement by a previous poster that there are fewer young people smoking cigarettes than there used to thanks to vaping. No, what contradicts that are [the simple numbers](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/22/teen-cigarette-smoking-ticks-up-as-vaping-surges.html). Teen cigarette smoking peaked in 1997 at 36.4% and _had_ been consistently plummeting since, two decades of dropping in a pretty straight line … until 2014. Teen vaping among teens took off about 2014. Pretty much immediately the drop slowed down, then stopped, and is now reversing. Already. Obviously vaping cannot take credit for the two decades plummet of teen cigarette use before teen vaping became a thing. It can however be reasonably blamed for the stop of the drop and its reversal that coincided with its taking off. These are not teens vaping instead of smoking. These are teens vaping who otherwise would not have been getting addicted to nicotine at all and who then to no insignificant degree move into cigarette smoking as well. Which is the pertinence to this thread: for teens today the answer to the question of the op is that it was a natural progression from vaping as it delivers a more reliably even higher hit of the drug they have become addicted to. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/68 "2019-02-22T14:22:56Z")
Because the “bad” cool kids hung out behind the convenience store next to my high school and _they_ all smoked. Have a friend who started smoking cigarettes so she would be more comfortable smoking pot, then shortly after stopped smoking pot, but kept smoking cigarettes for another like 10 years. ---
**Author:** ![Turble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Turble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turble)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/69 "2019-02-22T16:25:27Z")
From the link by DSeid: > [@](#): > > This year, 8.1 percent of high school students reported smoking cigarettes, up from 7.6 percent last year, according to federal health officials, who asked not to be named because the data haven’t been publicly released. The increase is not statistically significant, but it is likely to fuel growing controversy about teen use of e-cigarettes. > [@DSeid](#): > > … In any case the comment I made is completely noncontroversial. … A little discussion of what’s wrong with those numbers: [FDA has declared an epidemic of e-cigarette use by adolescents that none else has seen yet](http://www.ecigarette-research.org/research/index.php/whats-new/2018-2/267-fda2) > [@](#): > > It is extremely important to see detailed data on the “epidemic” declared by the FDA. I emphasize that published data SHOULD include frequency of use and smoking status of e-cigarette users – and of course the prevalence of tobacco cigarette use). Everyone knows that ever e-cigarette use is simply meaningless. Current e-cigarette use is also for the most part meaningless because (until now) most of never-smoking current e-cigarette users use them for 1-2 days of the past 30 days. ---
**Author:** ![Macca26](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/13edae/32.png) [@Macca26](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Macca26)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2019, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/70 "2019-02-22T17:25:07Z")
My data point is that all my smoking friends (who are also Millenials, like me, so we’re the “young” data set this thread is looking for), as a matter of course end up stuck in retail jobs and call center jobs far longer than we “should”. You get smoke breaks in those jobs. You don’t get smoke breaks if you don’t smoke, because management as usual is still a bunch of idiots. As a consequence, you start smoking to get your break. All my smoking friends have said it. And when your manager also smokes, guess who has the opportunity to get chummy with the manager and then gets the raises and the promotions? The smokers. Yes, the reason why a lot of the younger generations are smoking is because of the economic recession. Funny how things work out. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/71 "2019-02-23T13:21:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Everyone knows that ever e-cigarette use is simply meaningless. Current e-cigarette use is also for the most part meaningless because (until now) most of never-smoking current e-cigarette users use them for 1-2 days of the past 30 days. Yeah, it’s not like nicotine is addictive or anything. They can quit whenever they want. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/72 "2019-02-23T18:42:54Z")
Smoking will give a kid a really good feeling. As a rule they don’t start off smoking heavy so they get that cool feeling with each smoke. As the smoking increases so do the feel good effects but they are still there to some degree so we continue to smoke. ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/73 "2019-02-23T19:01:49Z")
I started smoking because I couldn’t stand cigarette smoke. I was working in nightclubs, and I discovered that if I smoked a cigarette before going onstage it would act as a sort-of prophylactic against the huge clouds of secondhand smoke rolling over me. Then I discovered that nicotine is a hell of a drug: it’s an anti-depressant, gives you a nice buzz, and if anything improves concentration and memory. Took far too long to quit. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/74 "2019-02-23T19:23:30Z")
> [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > Smoking will give a kid a really good feeling. As a rule they don’t start off smoking heavy so they get that cool feeling with each smoke. As the smoking increases so do the feel good effects but they are still there to some degree so we continue to smoke. I’d like to think this wouldn’t be so with adults, but alas I’m wrong. I wonder what would prompt a lifelong non-smoker to suddenly take up smoking at age 42, as my sister has. It troubles me. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/75 "2019-02-23T19:44:16Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I began smoking because my then-bf smoked. **This was before we knew how harmful it is.** Wow, even before coughing up the brown oysters in the shower in the morning? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/76 "2019-02-24T15:49:23Z")
> [@Macca26](#): > > My data point is that all my smoking friends (who are also Millenials, like me, so we’re the “young” data set this thread is looking for), as a matter of course end up stuck in retail jobs and call center jobs far longer than we “should”. You get smoke breaks in those jobs. You don’t get smoke breaks if you don’t smoke, because management as usual is still a bunch of idiots. As a consequence, you start smoking to get your break. All my smoking friends have said it. And when your manager also smokes, guess who has the opportunity to get chummy with the manager and then gets the raises and the promotions? The smokers. Yes, the reason why a lot of the younger generations are smoking is because of the economic recession. Funny how things work out. This is really interesting, but even here, half of it seems to be “the desire to hang out with other people who are smokers.” Why people continue once they’ve started, I understand. It’s that first cigarette / vape that I find mysterious. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2019, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/77 "2019-02-24T20:27:48Z")
I didn’t smoke until I was 21. My parents used to smoke in the car and I essentially shamed them into quitting. Imagine my surprise when I turned into a smoker. It started when I started going to the bar. Everyone around me was smoking so I bummed one, then another, then another. Then I bought some because I didn’t think it was right to keep bumming them. Then I bought them because I was a smoker and that’s what smokers do. I made a bad choice. I’ve made lots of bad choices in bars. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/78 "2019-02-25T10:16:44Z")
> [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](#): > > I’ve made lots of bad choices in bars. I did as well, but I went the other direction as far as smoking goes. When I would find myself bumming cigarettes at bars (well, izakaya drinking/eating establishments in Japan) I’d purposely buy a pack and smoke way too much. I felt worse the next day from the smoking rather than the drinking. Oh, and I became an alcoholic so that tactic didn’t help there. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/79 "2019-02-25T18:41:27Z")
My father smoked when I was young, quit for some years, and eventually started again, and eventually stopped for good after a heart attack. I tried it briefly in college, didn’t find it remotely addictive, and gradually stopped bothering to smoke. Threw the last ones away, I think the pack was so worn-out from carrying around. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2019, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/80 "2019-02-25T20:35:22Z")
You, alright? I learned it by watching _you!_ ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2019, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814/81 "2019-03-10T02:56:02Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Sometimes I wish I DID smoke. Then I would quit and like clockwork, put all the money I was not spending on cigs into a savings account. [Heh. Just like Bart.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q8AULZ2le28) 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-start-smoking/350814.md?page=5)