Teenage smoking has been a problem for over a century. Smoking itself has existed for thousands of years, but it really took off when cigarettes were invented in the 1840’s. For a long time, smoking was the norm – everybody did it. In fact, in the early 20th century, doctors even encouraged it. Because of this, teen smoking was a major problem for a long time. However, although it was encouraged in the first half of the 20th century, people woke up in the latter half. They realized that smoking caused lung cancer, and from the 1960’s through the 1980’s, smoking became much less popular. In fact, a report published by the CDC in 1992 said that half of smokers quit in that timeframe.
The Truth Initiative was founded in 1998, when the teen smoking rate was at 23%. Truth has launched numerous ad campaigns to inform America’s youth about the dangers of smoking cigarettes. It started as an experiment in Florida from 1998 until 2003, before being adopted nationally. It has featured several television ads, some of which feature emotional subjects like the death of people from smoking.
Some of my friends smoke, and it is hard to watch it happen. Whether we want to believe it or not, we have generations of work to undo. Smoking has been a cultural symbol of America and “Bad boys” for decades. Movies I watched growing up always had the cool guy with a cigarette burning in his mouth. Kids learn to emulate that, because they also see it as the cool thing to do. I’ve smoked exactly one cigarette in my life, but I have friends who are addicted. A good friend of mine moved to a place where smoking is very common, and he got addicted. He’s still the same friend I’ve always had, but he seems less happy as a person now.
We’ve come a long way from the days of the cool kids always smoking a cigarette. Nowadays, it is largely seen as gross and not something to be replicated. E-cigarettes have taken over as the main nicotine receptacle for teens and adults alike. Some say that we’ve moved backward by accepting E-cigarettes as a replacement to cigarettes. The fact is, though, that less and less people are becoming addicted to cigarettes. 5 years ago, it seemed like it was the cool thing to do. But most of the people that I meet nowadays that vape do it because they are trying to quit smoking. It seems like it’s less of the “cool” thing to do now, and more of a way to quit smoking.
Smoking is not good for you, and it causes people to not be their best selves. It drains your stamina, and it makes you reliant on something to survive, which takes you out of life. This is no way to live for anybody, whether it’s with cigarettes or E-cigarettes.
Change is possible, but you actually have to do something about it. Talking about change and saying how great it’ll be is good, but talk is cheap. It is good that we have adopted E-cigarettes as a way of quitting, but it’s not enough. Smoking of any kind is bad. We have made tons of progress in the last fifty years. Smoking is at an all-time low, and smoking cigarettes seems to be declining even more. If we’re going to stop it completely, we have to stop treating it as a cool thing. We have to stop introducing children to smoking, and we have to teach them good habits early on. We can be the generation that doesn’t smoke, but we have to put in the work to get there.
- Ending Teenage Smoking – by Matthew Cook - March 29, 2023