Definition
Nicotine is the drug in tobacco leaves. Whether someone smokes, chews, or sniffs tobacco, he or she is delivering nicotine to the brain. Each cigarette contains about 10 milligrams of nicotine. Nicotine is what keeps people smoking despite its harmful effects. Because the smoker inhales only some of the smoke from a cigarette and not all of each puff is absorbed in the lungs, a smoker gets about 1 to 2 milligrams of the drug from each cigarette. [1] A drop of pure nicotine would kill a person-in fact, nicotine can be used as a pesticide on crops.
Articles
- Youth and Tobacco Use – Current Estimates
- Testimony on Prevention of Teen Smoking
- Smoking May Lead to Anxiety Disorders in Adolescents and Young Adults
- Parents: Nicotine Is A Real Threat To Your Kids
- Tobacco Addiction
- Nicotine Basics for Teens
- Smoking and How to Quit – for Teens
- Cigarette Use Among High School Students
Article Summaries
Youth and Tobacco Use – Current Estimates
Twenty-three percent of high school students in the United States are current cigarette smokers—23% of females and 22.9% of males. Approximately 26% of whites, 22% of Hispanics, and 13% of African Americans in high school are current cigarette smokers. Eight percent of middle school students in this country are current cigarette smokers,2 with estimates slightly higher for females (9%) than males (8%). Nine percent of whites, 10% of Hispanics, 8% of African Americans, and 3% of Asian Americans in middle school are current cigarette smokers. Each day in the United States, approximately 4,000 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 years initiate cigarette smoking, and an estimated 1,140 young people become daily cigarette smokers.3
Testimony on Prevention of Teen Smoking
Tough Penalties and Price Increases Aimed at Youth Smokers Reducing teen smoking has always been America’s bottom line. It must be the tobacco industry’s bottom line as well. To achieve this important goal, the Administration believes tobacco legislation must include stiff penalties that give the tobacco industry the strongest possible incentive to stop targeting kids. Legislation should set ambitious targets to cut teen smoking by 30 percent in 5 years, 50 percent in 7 years, and 60 percent in 1 0 years, and impose severe financial penalties that hold tobacco companies accountable to meet those targets. The Administration supports penalties that are non-deductible, uncapped, and escalating – so that the penalties get stiffer and the price goes up the more that companies miss the targets. The penalties should be designed so that individual companies are accountable for their own actions.
Smoking May Lead to Anxiety Disorders in Adolescents and Young Adults
Using a wealth of data obtained through a 25-year longitudinal study, NIDA-funded researcher Dr. Judith Brook of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, Dr. Patricia Cohen of Columbia University in New York, and their colleagues have documented adverse effects of smoking in several critical areas of functioning during young adulthood. Most recently, the team has reported a connection between tobacco use by adolescents and young adults and the likelihood that they will develop agoraphobia (fear of leaving home or of the outdoors), generalized anxiety disorder, or panic disorder. Analyzing data from their Children in the Community study, funded by NIDA and the National Institute of Mental Health, the researchers were able to separate the effects of smoking from the effects of age, gender, childhood temperament, alcohol and other drug abuse, and depression among the adolescents, as well as parents’ smoking, education, and behavioral and/or mental health problems.
Parents: Nicotine Is A Real Threat To Your Kids
Hand holding lit cigarette – Caption It’s Drug Addiction(NAPS)-Parents naturally worry about the health and safety of their children. Many parents teach their kids to avoid getting involved with drugs, although sometimes adults forget about the drug most abused by adolescents – nicotine. Every year, teens continue to light up even though there is strong public awareness about the health hazards of smoking. When you’re young, it’s hard to think about the consequences of your actions. Kids don’t project that smoking today can lead to negative effects in their futuresÑincreased risk of cancer, heart attack, and stroke in adulthood.
Tobacco use kills nearly half a million Americans each year, with one in every six U.S. deaths the result of smoking. Smoking harms nearly every organ of the body, causing many diseases and compromising smokers’ health in general. Nicotine, a component of tobacco, is the primary reason that tobacco is addictive, although cigarette smoke contains many other dangerous chemicals, including tar, carbon monoxide, acetaldehyde, nitrosamines, and more. An improved overall understanding of addiction and of nicotine as an addictive drug has been instrumental in developing medications and behavioral treatments for tobacco addiction. For example, the nicotine patch and gum, now readily available at drugstores and supermarkets nationwide, have proven effective for smoking cessation when combined with behavioral therapy.
Nicotine is the drug in tobacco leaves. Whether someone smokes, chews, or sniffs tobacco, he or she is delivering nicotine to the brain. Each cigarette contains about 10 milligrams of nicotine. Nicotine is what keeps people smoking despite its harmful effects. Because the smoker inhales only some of the smoke from a cigarette and not all of each puff is absorbed in the lungs, a smoker gets about 1 to 2 milligrams of the drug from each cigarette. A drop of pure nicotine would kill a person-in fact, nicotine can be used as a pesticide on crops.
Smoking and How to Quit – for Teens
Are you a young woman who smokes or do you know a young woman who smokes? It’s time to recognize how smoking can affect a person’s health now and in the future. Chemicals in Cigarette Smoke. Did you know that cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, many of which are poisonous? If you smoke, these are just some of the substances you’re putting into your body:
Cigarette Use Among High School Students
Cigarette use is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States (1). A national health objective for 2010 is to reduce the prevalence of current cigarette use among high school students to 16% or less (27-2b) (1). To examine changes in cigarette use among high school students in the United States during 1991-2007, CDC analyzed data from the national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). This report summarizes the results of that analysis, which indicated that the prevalence of lifetime cigarette use was stable during 1991-1999 and then declined from 70.4% in 1999 to 50.3% in 2007. The prevalence of current cigarette use increased from 27.5% in 1991 to 36.4% in 1997, declined to 21.9% in 2003, and remained stable from 2003 to 2007. The prevalence of current frequent cigarette use increased from 12.7% in 1991 to 16.8% in 1999 and then declined to 8.1% in 2007. To resume the declines observed in current cigarette use during 1997—2003 and achieve the 2010 objective, communitywide comprehensive tobacco-control programs that use coordinated evidence-based strategies should be implemented and revitalized.