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Journalism Award Winner: Spring 2000: First Place

Junior Ashley Meyer was six years old when she learned her grandfather, with whom she was very close, had died from lung cancer as a consequence of smoking. When her father picked her up from school to tell her the news, she couldn’t believe it. Her grandfather, the only person in the family who could make her take medicine, was gone.

However, her grandfather’s death due to a smoking-related disease was not enough to stop Meyer from trying her first cigarette six years later. By eighth grade, she was addicted to the same thing that killed her grandfather.

Although Meyer has seen the effects of smoking firsthand, she says that she tries not to think about how it is harming her every time she lights up.

“When I smoke, I think only about smoking the cigarette, not what it could do to me in the future,” she said.

Tobacco is one of the only legal products that causes death and disability when used as intended, and it is directly responsible for 87 percent of all lung cancer cases. Meyer’s grandfather was once one of the 50 million people in the United States who smoke. But now he is accounted for in the estimated 430,070 people who die each year from smoking-related diseases, according to the American Lung Association.

According to a book entitled, “Coping with Smoking,” many recall their first experience with a cigarette makes them feel sick to their stomach instead of making them feel good. If this is the case, what makes these people pick up their second cigarette?

According the U.S. Surgeon General, nicotine is just as addictive as crack cocaine. When a person smokes, nicotine enters the bloodstream through the lungs. As the level of nicotine in a smoker’s body becomes low, the person craves for more nicotine.

Aside from becoming addicted, many people begin to smoke because they associate with others who smoke. According to the American Cancer Society, a person who comes from a non-smoking family has a one-in-20 chance of becoming a smoker. These odds increase to a one-in-five chance for a person who has lived with parents or siblings who smoke. For a person brought up in a smoker’s house, smoking seems like the natural thing to do.

Peer pressure is also a major factor contributing to the reasons for an individual to smoke. According to Daniel McMillan, author of “Teen Smoking,” teens tend to start smoking because they think it will help them “be cool” and relate with peers.

Senior Adam White began smoking the summer before his eighth grade year because he thought it was cool. He said he has since realized how stupid smoking is, and that it’s not “cool.”

“Basically, you’re paying to kill yourself,” he said.

White, who has tried to drop the habit four times unsuccessfully, is trying for a fifth time to quit smoking.

Through advertisements, the tobacco industry targets 1.75 billion new smokers a year to compensate for people who have quit or died, according to the American Lung Association. These tobacco companies spend more than $6 million per year on advertisements, targeting mostly to children and teens. Joe Camel, the cartoon mascot for Camel cigarettes, was R.J. Reynolds’ way of trying to appeal to young age groups. And it worked. A survey that studied children’s recognition revealed that for as many kids who knew who Mickey Mouse was, just as many also knew who Joe Camel was.

In the United States, only 20 to 25 percent of smokers who try to quit succeed. According to the American Lung Association, people who smoke not only become physically dependent on cigarettes, but psychologically too, making it harder to quit. They link smoking to many social activities, making it difficult to break the habit.

The first thing smokers should know before quitting is what to expect.

“When people stop smoking, they experience withdrawal and don’t feel normal so they pick up a cigarette in order to feel what they think is normal again,” said Lisa Martin, program director at the American Lung Association of Ohio.

With every cigarette that is smoked, the smoker is putting 4,000 chemicals into his or her body. When the smoker stops smoking, he is taking away those chemicals that the body is used to having, causing withdrawal. Symptoms of withdrawal include insomnia, constipation, gas, stomach pain and hunger. While most symptoms decrease or stop three days after the last cigarette, others could last for two or three weeks.

To help cope with some of these withdrawal symptoms, there is help available in many forms. Nicotine patches can be purchased over-the-counter to help reduce withdrawal symptoms by providing a steady dosage of nicotine. Nicotine gum, like the patch also reduces cravings and physical symptoms. A nicotine nasal spray is available by prescription, and it works in minutes to respond to stress or urges to smoke. The nicotine inhaler is a plastic cylinder containing a cartridge that delivers nicotine faster than the patch can when it is puffed on. Another prescription available is a non-nicotine pill, Zyban. Zyban acts on brain chemicals to create the same effects that nicotine has when people smoke. It also helps to reduce withdrawal symptoms and the urge to smoke.

Martin warns not to abuse nicotine replacements, as many people do, and also said that nicotine replacements are good for people who smoke a lot because it helps reduce how many cigarettes they smoke a day.

Senior Justin Mulheim, who has been smoking since the ninth grade, recently decided to quit smoking after he noticed he had developed a cough and that he couldn’t run at all. His doctor prescribed Zyban to help him quit, and he has not been smoking as many cigarettes as he normally would. He said he thinks the Zyban will help him quit, but it’s too early to tell for sure.

“When I am on it, it works,” Mulheim said. “But when it wears off I fiend for cigarettes.”

There are other methods of quitting without the use of nicotine replacements or Zyban. Stopping all together is one way, and the best way according to Martin. She said if a person chooses this method, it sometimes makes it easier if they quit with another person, or have a support group to help them fight the urge to smoke.

Research has shown that people who try to quit smoking “cold turkey” have a better chance of quitting than those who cut down gradually. However, by gradually cutting down the number of cigarettes smoked, withdrawal symptoms are not as intense as they would be when going cold turkey. Smokers should carry the minimum number of cigarettes needed, and buy a brand of cigarettes they don’t like.

Senior Brandon Stephens, who says he used to smoke out of boredom, quit smoking cold turkey last summer while he and his parents were in Mexico. He had wanted to quit long before his vacation, but said that being in Mexico was a good opportunity to quit because he wasn’t around all his friends who smoked and didn’t have access to cigarettes anyway.

“It took a lot of willpower, but I am glad I did it because it’s saving my health and money,” he said.

Copyright © 2000

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