Nicotine Addiction Among Adolescents


Book Description

Nicotine Addiction Among Adolescents furnishes researchers and medical professionals with a comprehensive overview of current theories and statistics. Moreover, it offers fresh empirical research as well as suggestions for promising avenues of investigation. This well-researched volume recognizes the need for developmentally sensitive approaches for conceptualizing and treating nicotine addiction and offers you thought-provoking strategies and models that will spark future research.




Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults


Book Description

This booklet for schools, medical personnel, and parents contains highlights from the 2012 Surgeon General's report on tobacco use among youth and teens (ages 12 through 17) and young adults (ages 18 through 25). The report details the causes and the consequences of tobacco use among youth and young adults by focusing on the social, environmental, advertising, and marketing influences that encourage youth and young adults to initiate and sustain tobacco use. This is the first time tobacco data on young adults as a discrete population have been explored in detail. The report also highlights successful strategies to prevent young people from using tobacco.




E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults: a Report of the Surgeon General


Book Description

Tobacco use among youth and young adults in any form, including e-cigarettes, is not safe. In recent years, e-cigarette use by youth and young adults has increased at an alarming rate. E-cigarettes are now the most commonly used tobacco product among youth in the United States. This timely report highlights the rapidly changing patterns of e-cigarette use among youth and young adults, assesses what we know about the health effects of using these products, and describes strategies that tobacco companies use to recruit our nation's youth and young adults to try and continue using e-cigarettes. The report also outlines interventions that can be adopted to minimize the harm these products cause to our nation's youth.E-cigarettes are tobacco products that deliver nicotine. Nicotine is a highly addictive substance, and many of today's youth who are using e-cigarettes could become tomorrow's cigarette smokers. Nicotine exposure can also harm brain development in ways that may affect the health and mental health of our kids.E-cigarette use among youth and young adults is associated with the use of other tobacco products, including conventional cigarettes. Because most tobacco use is established during adolescence, actions to prevent our nation's young people from the potential of a lifetime of nicotine addiction are critical.E-cigarette companies appear to be using many of the advertising tactics the tobacco industry used to persuade a new generation of young people to use their products. Companies are promoting their products through television and radio advertisements that use celebrities, sexual content, and claims of independence to glamorize these addictive products and make them appealing to young people.




How Tobacco Smoke Causes Disease


Book Description

This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.




Public Health Implications of Raising the Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products


Book Description

Tobacco use by adolescents and young adults poses serious concerns. Nearly all adults who have ever smoked daily first tried a cigarette before 26 years of age. Current cigarette use among adults is highest among persons aged 21 to 25 years. The parts of the brain most responsible for cognitive and psychosocial maturity continue to develop and change through young adulthood, and adolescent brains are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of nicotine. At the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Public Health Implications of Raising the Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products considers the likely public health impact of raising the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products. The report reviews the existing literature on tobacco use patterns, developmental biology and psychology, health effects of tobacco use, and the current landscape regarding youth access laws, including minimum age laws and their enforcement. Based on this literature, the report makes conclusions about the likely effect of raising the minimum age to 19, 21, and 25 years on tobacco use initiation. The report also quantifies the accompanying public health outcomes based on findings from two tobacco use simulation models. According to the report, raising the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products, particularly to ages 21 and 25, will lead to substantial reductions in tobacco use, improve the health of Americans across the lifespan, and save lives. Public Health Implications of Raising the Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products will be a valuable reference for federal policy makers and state and local health departments and legislators.




The Tobacco Epidemic


Book Description

A Karger 'Publishing Highlights 1890-2015' title Today it is a well-established fact that cigarette smoking is fundamentally a form of addiction to the drug nicotine. However, this does not mean that smoking can entirely be explained in terms of pharmacological factors - as with any drug addiction, social, economic, personal and political influences all play an important part in determining patterns of prevalence and cessation. This publication provides a comprehensive, up-to-date review of tobacco smoking. Written by internationally acknowledged experts, the 15 chapters of the book cover the history, economics, epidemiology, and psychology of tobacco use. The medical consequences of both active and passive smoking are discussed in detail, and the pharmacological and behavioral aspects of nicotine dependence are highlighted. Several chapters focus on smoking cessation, examining patterns and predictors of cessation in the general population and the role of GPs, nurses and pharmacists, and evaluating nicotine replacement therapy and other drugs, as well as the role of smokeless tobacco. Measures to prevent smoking such as smoke-free environments, advertising bans, and price increases are also considered. Finally, recommendations are given to change legislation concerning tobacco products in order to most effectively reduce the harm associated with nicotine use. This book is a must for anyone in the medical profession interested in smoking-related issues. Due to its easy readability and topicality, it will also appeal to nonmedical readers.




Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes


Book Description

Millions of Americans use e-cigarettes. Despite their popularity, little is known about their health effects. Some suggest that e-cigarettes likely confer lower risk compared to combustible tobacco cigarettes, because they do not expose users to toxicants produced through combustion. Proponents of e-cigarette use also tout the potential benefits of e-cigarettes as devices that could help combustible tobacco cigarette smokers to quit and thereby reduce tobacco-related health risks. Others are concerned about the exposure to potentially toxic substances contained in e-cigarette emissions, especially in individuals who have never used tobacco products such as youth and young adults. Given their relatively recent introduction, there has been little time for a scientific body of evidence to develop on the health effects of e-cigarettes. Public Health Consequences of E-Cigarettes reviews and critically assesses the state of the emerging evidence about e-cigarettes and health. This report makes recommendations for the improvement of this research and highlights gaps that are a priority for future research.







Reducing Underage Drinking


Book Description

Alcohol use by young people is extremely dangerous - both to themselves and society at large. Underage alcohol use is associated with traffic fatalities, violence, unsafe sex, suicide, educational failure, and other problem behaviors that diminish the prospects of future success, as well as health risks â€" and the earlier teens start drinking, the greater the danger. Despite these serious concerns, the media continues to make drinking look attractive to youth, and it remains possible and even easy for teenagers to get access to alcohol. Why is this dangerous behavior so pervasive? What can be done to prevent it? What will work and who is responsible for making sure it happens? Reducing Underage Drinking addresses these questions and proposes a new way to combat underage alcohol use. It explores the ways in which may different individuals and groups contribute to the problem and how they can be enlisted to prevent it. Reducing Underage Drinking will serve as both a game plan and a call to arms for anyone with an investment in youth health and safety.




Tobacco and Health


Book Description

Over 1,100 delegates from a hundred countries attended the 9th World Conference onTobaccoandHealth. Afterfivedaysofdebate, severalimportantresolutionswereadopted unanimously and will be landmarks in the fight against tobacco. This great success is due to three facts which emerged from the discussions: 1. Itappears clearlynowthattherisksassociated withtobaccoaremuchgreaterthan previously assumed. Out of two regular smokers, one will die from a tobacco­ related disease. 2. Reducing tobacco consumption can be achieved but the data collected in several countriesshowthatitrequiresaglobalstrategy.Thisstrategywasmuchdebatedduring theconference. Theresolutionsadoptedemphasizetheagreementofthedelegateson themainpoints. Actionto fight thegrowingepidemicoftobacco-attributabledisease and death involves convincing the general public, the medical community and decision-makers ofthe need to act for tobacco control. The most efficient tools for helping individuals never to start or successfully to stop using tobacco should be developed; effective tobacco control endeavors are required to counteractthe actions ofthe powerful and influential tobacco manufacturers. With the help and under the aegis ofWHO, DICC, IUATLD, ISFC, IOCD, and IUHPE, an international alliance for health and against tobacco shouldunite all those who are engaged in this fight.