Nicotine Addiction in Young People

Although the epidemic of disease and death from smoking is played out in adulthood, it begins in childhood. Every day another 3000 young people become regular smokers.1 A person who has not started smoking as a teenager is unlikely ever to become a smoker.2 The tobacco industry has argued that the decision to smoke and to continue smoking is a free choice made by an adult, but nicotine addiction is really a condition that takes hold in young people.Ask a smoker when he or she began to smoke, and chances are you will hear the tale of a child. . . .