Just wondered. How are cigarettes perceived by kids ( ages 13-18) these days? From an image perspective cigarettes (at this point) are a known health hazard, rejected as esthetically disgusting by many, are expensive, and tend to be used mainly by by older and lower middle class demographic cohorts. I can’t grasp the appeal (on any level) they would have for kids at this point.
Yet occasionally I still see high school age kids smoking in the “but hut” area outside fast food joints. What compels some kids to start smoking these days?
Well, I’m 19, but I see a lot of my friends smoking at school. I always ask why they do that, when they know that smoking makes them smelly and is killing them. Their reply? “Well I was really stressed because my dad died/my cat scratched me/it’s a day that ends in Y”
I grew up in a college town that was big into outdoor activities and health. So smoking was considered something only the dregs did. And that’s precisely why my friends and I started smoking. Because it was considered “skanky” and unhealthy. Simply because it was a kinda perverse, nasty habit to pick up and would annoy other people.
Well, it IS a stress reliever for me; maybe the effect is largely psychological but hey, it helps me get through the day without having a panic attack, so whatever works, right? Besides, I don’t plan to be around for longer than twenty more years or so anyway; anything that speeds up the process is welcome.
My fifteen year old (who now claims to have quit) did it to be cool. He denies that, vehemently, of course, but all the evidence indicates that he figured that it was a nice little rebellious gesture that gave him standing among his peers. (And no kid doubts that s/he will live forever, so what’s the big deal?)
Strange, there don’t seem to be a lot of smokers at our school. Potheads, yes, but not cigarette smokers. I’ve gone into the toilets/changing rooms/empty demountables several times to find that they smelled like pot, but I don’t think they’ve ever smelled like cigarettes. Maybe the cigarette smokers just do it more openly and I’m very unobservant?
I’ve only been out of high school for a few years. Those who started smoking in high school knew it was bad, and gross, and unhealthy. And it wasn’t “cool”, at all. The popular kids didn’t smoke - the ones trying to be bad-asses did. And those were two different groups. Pot was more common with the “cool” kids. I could never get into that, I like my brain when it’s working and stuff.
But yes, there’s curiosity, there’s the “Well, everyone’s telling us not to do it, just like they tell us not to drink or do drugs or have sex. People like drinking and doing drugs and having sex - so there must be something good to smoking, too” logic. I started because a much older friend of mine, who I admired greatly, smoked. I didn’t do it to be like her or anything like that, but when we’d hang out or go out for coffee she’d always be smoking, so I dunno, I just started bumming smokes from her every now and then and it became a daily thing before I knew it.
There were very few smokers in my high school, but there were a LOT of potheads. And since my high school did they “Smoking is bad for your lungs” but “Pot is bad for your brain” thing, I wonder how many considered the damage they were doing to their lungs and waitaminute… have you ever looked at your hands? I mean, really, really, *looked * at them?
I started smoking when I was 15 (14 years ago but I dare say human nature hasn’t changed in that time and the dangers of smoking were just as well known then). In a nutshell, as a sheltered, pampered and much-loved child of middle class parents, I was convinced that I was a badly done-by, wretched, miserable and deprived human being and blamed said parents. Smoking was simultaniously a way to upset my family and an affectation for the “Woe is me, I should just kill myself” pose that I adopted in those years. I would probably dress like a goth and post on VampireFreaks.com if I was a teen today.
In other words, I started smoking because I was an immature spoilt brat seeking to punish my parents for my petty little grievences and spite.
I’d like to say that I’ve changed (and I hope recognising my behaviour for what it was is proof that something’s changed) but when I recall that I quit smoking 4 years ago mostly out of vanity, I wonder… you see, cancer, heart disease and all those other things didn’t bother me as much as the idea of premature aging. :o
Oddly enough, if you check out the young celebrity set, practically ALL of them smoke like chimneys. Every female star under 25 is constantly puffing away. (Ironically, tabloids and gossip rags that report on their every misdeed tend to avoid showing them with cigarettes- in this day and age, smoking is apparently more scandalous and shameful than screwing around with married men!)
And these young stars do it for the same reason generations before them did. For the same reason people snort cocaine. For the same reason people drink beer and whiskey. For the same reason I eat fatty, salty foods.
It makes them feel good!
Yes, it’s likely to have terrible effects on their health later, but it feels so good NOW!
Any other reason proposed is probably missing the point. I don’t eat fatty foods because Madison Avenue told me it’s glamorous. I do so because they taste good. I’ve never smoked tobacco or drunk hard liquor or snorted cocaine, but the principle is the same: the people who do those things do so because it gives them some kind of pleasure that I don’t grasp.
ditto, astorian. Plus many of the young starlets are smoking, doing cocaine and drinking copious amounts of diet energy drinks to supress their appetites and lose or maintain weight.
And not a few teenage girls are doing the same.
The number one reason I hear from young women for not quiting smoking is, “but I don’t want to get fat!”
Why did they start in the first place? 'Cause someone told them cigarettes make you not hungry. (Which they do, up to a point.)
Obviously, this isn’t the answer for why all teenagers start smoking, but it does cover a good chunk of them.
First time I remember smoking was when we were like 15, and a friend stole some of his mom’s cigarettes. Maybe it was the “forbidden” aspect to it. We were always doing things we weren’t supposed to do back then. . .throw rocks through windows, drive crazy, drink, get in fights, whatever. It wasn’t long after that we started smoking pot.
And, we were some of the good kids.
Thing is, you knew kids even back then who started and quit. Both of my parents had quit. So, it wasn’t like, “oooh, I’m going to try a cigarette and be addicted for the rest of my life and die from lung cancer before age 50.”
I don’t think we thought people who smoked were COOL, per se. . .but we certainly didn’t think the goody-two-shoes were cool either.
Fuck it, maybe we did just think it was cool. Fuck it moreso. . .maybe it is cool. We used to stand around blowing smoke rings, doing zippo tricks, working on different grips. We had little smoking hangouts where we wouldn’t get nabbed by parents or teachers.
And, also, when you smoke. . .you’re never really doing nothing. Just standing around smoking was doing something. That goes a long way in a small town.
I know an awful lot of people (women mostly) who say they started because they were really stressed out and smoked to relax. I’m always curious, though, why that was the form of relaxion they chose. I guess because, unlike alcohol, you can walk down the streat doing it, get in your car and do it, take a break at work and do it, and not be impared.
Actually, a lot of the young Hollywood folk are being called on the smoking. In the last few months I’ve seen several magazine articles/news shows/etc. titled something like, “Why is Young Hollywood Killing Themselves”.
Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears get called on the smoking the most; there are lots and lots of photos floating around of those two puffing away (Brit not so much as of late, due to the pregnancy thing).
I smoked my first cigarette legally, at age 18, after going down to the 7-eleven with my new age of majority-proving ID and purchasing cigarettes, lottery tickets, and porn. I was curious.
I found that I liked cigarettes. I still do. I don’t, however, like the stink that remains, the expense, and the increased likelyhood of death, so I tend to smoke very seldomly. Maybe a pack a year or so.
I smoke when I’m stressed or when I have to stay awake.
The nicotine speeds your system up. Gets you going again. The majority of smokers tend to be fidgity people or possibly shades of ADHD. They think they are taking a break with the smoke, but when they inhale the tobacco-nicotine into their system, it is revving it back up. Lather, rinse, repeat. Pushing the accelerator down again, giving them a false sense of energy.
I read this in a fantastic book from my library that for the life of me, I cannot recall what the title of it was. I will call over there an ask and link it here when I get it. I cannot recommend the book higher.
Also, if a kid grows up with a smoking parent, they tend to smoke themselves as they see nothing wrong with it.
For a non-smoker ( having a father die of lung cancer and brothers suffer horribly from emphysema and other things) what I find absolutely astounding is that if you are a smoker, the price of the damn cigerettes for a pack is high. For a carton, is insane. I’m too cheap to ever smoke. I’d rather take that money ( say $40 a month on a carton of cheap smokes, and blow it on the lottery because in the long run, I’ll still be able to breath.)
There’s a lot more to smoking than nicotine. If nicotine was all there was to it, we’d all be on the patch and quit no problem. (I quit when I got pregnant with WhyBaby, and haven’t started again, thank og, but nicotine was the least of my concerns.) Smoking affords a break from work. Smoking is a repetitive, deep-breathing exercise, not unlike breathing during yoga. Smoking is a social experience. All these things calm you down.
Denying the experience of millions of people because of the action of one of the thousands of chemicals in cigarettes is annoying and patronizing.