Tobacco as a "Gateway" Drug

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has stated, "the experience of smoking can teach youngsters to use a psychoactive drug to influence mood and alertness, as nicotine does, and then reinforce that behavior.

Smoking cigarettes prepares young people for the relevant mode of ingestion for one of the next drugs in the sequence - namely marijuana."

NIDA points out that drawing a foreign substance into the lungs is not a normal behavior for humans or other animals - it is a behavior which has to be learned and rewarded enough to overcome the aversive experiences which usually result."

Generally smoking cigarettes are the first peer-shared drug experience, or first illicit drug experience, similar to using Marijuana as it is usually hidden and outside most family and general societal acceptance standards

Smoking cigarettes can facilitate later drug use by teaching how to deeply inhale and hold smoke in the lungs

As a smoked drug, cigarettes initiate teens into the sensation of inhaling a drug and desensitize them to the feeling of smoke entering their lungs - A skill used for smoking marijuana, hashish, or free-basing crack cocaine

Here are 6 major points to consider.

• Tobacco is generally the first drug used by young people who enter a sequence of drug use that can include tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and harder drugs. 

• Illegal drug use is rare among those who have never smoked and cigarette smoking is likely to precede the use of alcohol and illicit drug. 

• The amount of tobacco use is directly related to other drug use.

• Tobacco is officially recognized as an addictive drug.

• There is a dramatic association between smoking and illicit drug use.

• To allow tobacco use at schools, or at any teen function, is to sanction drug use.

According to the 1994 Surgeon General's report, 12-17 year olds who reported having smoked in the past 30 days were three times more likely to use alcohol, eight times more likely to smoke marijuana, and 22 times more likely to use cocaine, within those past 30 days than those 12-17 year olds who had not smoked during that time.

Other problem behaviors may be associated as well as illustrated in the table below.

Youth Smoking & Relationship to Other Problem Behaviors of Youth

1992 National Health Interview Survey of Youth Risk Behavior
National Center for Health Statistics

Other Problem Behavior	Youth Never Smoked	Youth Current Smoker
Alcohol use in past month	23.0%	74.4%
Five or more drinks in a row	9.5%	50.3%
Marijuana use in past month	1.5%	26.5%
Smokeless tobacco use in past month (boys)	4.1%	28.1%
Carried a weapon	9.5%	25.6%
Physical fight in past year	29.0%	54.7%
*N=10,645 persons, age 12-21 years of age

As you can see from the chart above, youth smoking can be a direct correlation to many of our headline community issues.  Some argue that allowing youth access to tobacco is simply increasing the incidence of community problems and populating our streets with potential criminals. 

(National Survey Results on Drug Use from the Monitoring the Future Study, " The University of Michigan).

Adolescents who smoke are more likely to be involved in risky behaviors than teenagers who have never smoked.(2)

(1) American Health Journal, December 1990.

(2) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, et al, Advance Data. Number 224, February 1, 1993.

(3) U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse: "National Trends in Drug Use and Related Factors Among American High School Students and Young Adults." 1975-1986.

 

The amount of tobacco use is directly related to other drug use.

Students whose low-level use of tobacco or alcohol increased to heavy-level use during follow-up interviews were more likely to begin using other substances or to increase their use if these substances than those who remained low-level users of tobacco or alcohol. (Bailey, 1992)

Among 12 through 17 year old adolescents who had never smoked, only 3 percent had binged (had five or more alcoholic drinks in a row) in the past 30 days, this compares with nearly 40 percent of daily smokers in this age group who had binged in the last 30 days. (NIDA, Nationional Household survey on Drug Abuse, 1985)

Among young people 15 years of age, the initial use of cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana is the strongest predictor of later use of cocaine. (U.S.. Department of Health and Human Services,1998)

Youth between the ages of 12 and 17 who had smoked in the past 30 days were 3 times more likely to have consumed alcohol, 8 times more likely to have smoked marijuana and 22 times more likely to have used cocaine than those who had not smoked cigarettes. (NIDA, National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, 1985)

According to former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, "What is notable about tobacco use is that it consistently occurs early in the sequence of problem behaviors. When a young person starts to smoke or use tobacco, it is a signal, an alarm that he or she may get involved in other risky behaviors. This is one of the few early warning signs we have in public health. If we can prevent tobacco use in the first place, we might have a big impact on preventing or delaying a host of other destructive behaviors among our young people."

 

Tobacco is officially recognized as an addictive drug.

The tobacco companies discovered decades ago that if they removed the nicotine, the addictive element, people stopped buying the tobacco products. Tobacco is also a gateway drug for teenagers. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a federal government agency, teens get hooked on tobacco by the time they are 12 to 14 years old.

97% of high school seniors who smoked a pack-a-day in 1985 had begun smoking by the fourth grade. 53% of seniors who smoked half-a-pack a day or more said they had already tried to quit smoking and were unable to do so. 47% said they would like to quit.

Substance	Withdrawal	Reinforcement	Tolerance	Dependence	Intoxication
Nicotine	3	4	2	1	5
Heroin	2	2	1	2	2
Cocaine	4	1	4	3	3
Alcohol	1	3	3	4	1
Caffeine	5	6	5	5	6
Marijuana	6	5	6	6	4

95% of pack-a-day smokers in the senior class had used an illicit drug, 81% had used an illicit drug other than marijuana, 49% had used cocaine, and 67% were actively using an illicit drug.

Of the nonsmokers in the senior class, only one-fourth (27%) had tried an illicit drug (compared to 95% of smokers); only 20% had tried marijuana (94% of smokers); only 5% had tried cocaine (49% of smokers). Current marijuana use was eight times as high among the pack-a-day smokers as nonsmokers, and daily marijuana use was 20 times as high. Daily use of any illicit drug other than marijuana was 13 times as high among smokers as nonsmokers.

There is also a dramatic relationship between smoking and use of alcohol. The pack-a-day smokers are 11 times as likely to be current daily drinkers as those who never smoked (18.4% vs. 1.7%). Pack-a-day smokers are also 4 times as likely to report an occasion of heavy drinking (67.9% vs. 17.2%).

To allow adults, to smoke at a teen function is to promote the image of "adult behavior" and to say clearly "I can do it and you can't.  Secondhand smoke is not my worry, but yours."

Adapted from an article by the Virginia Group to Alleviate Smoking in Public.