Smoking, a peer-induced addiction?
In college, everyone has their bad habits — those things we shouldn’t do, but we do anyway. No one really has a problem admitting they have a bad habit but call it an addiction, and that’s a whole different story.
What’s the difference between a habit and an addiction? Both are used to describe situations, actions or behaviors that tend to occur more frequently than others. Occasionally, these words are used interchangeably. But these words aren’t the same; there is one key difference between them.
Some habits can be stopped rather easily — addictions aren’t so simple to quit.
They take time and effort to break, energy to persevere through and determination to not fall victim to it again.
College life taunts students with the same addictions that the real world does, but campus life makes it a lot easier to give in and “just try it once.”
Smoking is one of the more common addictions among college students. According to the Web site for Above the Influence, a national youth anti-drug campaign, 75 percent of young people who use tobacco find it hard to quit because of the addictive nature of the drug.
“I wouldn’t say I’m addicted,” said Kevin Fries, a junior in the College of Business Administration. “My first cigarette was over the summer before my junior year. It was for a friend’s 18th birthday, and one of the things he wanted to do that day.
“I only do it rarely here. (Smoking) was more frequent over the summer because there were more people at home that smoked.”
Addiction to tobacco products, mainly cigarettes and chewing tobacco, isn’t something that is anticipated when reaching for the cigarette that first time. According to Above the Influence, “No one ‘plans’ to become a drug addict, and every one of the millions of people with … dependency started out thinking they had it ‘under control.’ ”
Unlike Fries, most smokers pick up that first cigarette long before getting to college. According to a smoking research Web site, smoking-facts.net, the average age for someone to start smoking is 16, and almost every smoking addict started smoking while in high school.
A college setting may not be the place where smoking addictions start, but this is where they are continued.
Walking out of any residence hall or academic building on campus, one can usually find a few smokers standing there, enjoying a few puffs of a cigarette. What is it that keeps smokers going back to such a deadly habit?
“I really think that there is a lot less peer influence now than there was in the past,” said Erin Blaney, junior in the College of Arts & Sciences. “We also realize the health impact that it may have on us.”
The Some-Smoking-Facts Web site echoes Blaney’s statement, saying that 6 million teenage smokers currently know the health risks associated with smoking, but have chosen to ignore them.
Although smokers on Marquette’s campus were very hesitant to comment on much, there was an overwhelming consensus about the adverse effects the nicotine was taking on their bodies.
Could it be peer pressure? According to the American Cancer Society Web site, it may be peers that draw a student in for his or her first cigarette, but it is the addiction that gets him or her to reach for another.
“I don’t feel a pressure to smoke,” Fries said. “I have one friend, who is very addicted to cigarettes, and he pressures me to smoke more often, but I typically don’t listen.”
The ACS Web site said that of 100 random teenage smokers polled, only three thought they would still be smoking five years later. When the same 100 were asked the same question five years later, 60 of them were still smoking.
Starting to smoke while in college isn’t something that many do, but neither is quitting. However, the media is beginning to make it more socially acceptable to quit. With the introduction of the “truth” campaign, a smoking-awareness campaign aimed at using Big Tobacco’s (Philip Morris, Reynolds American and Lorillard) words against them, knowledge about the dangers of smoking is becoming more clear to young smokers.
Providing only the facts in its advertisements and never actually saying “Don’t smoke,” the “truth” campaign aims at giving young people the information so that they can make an informed decision on their own.
“I think the ‘truth’ ads are abrasive,” said Dylan Huebner, a sophomore in the College of Communication. “I don’t like how they are trying to make it look like Big Tobacco is lying to you.”
Huebner, a nonsmoker, also added that he hasn’t seen an ad for cigarettes in five to 10 years.
With the “truth” campaign revolutionizing the way information about smoking is being presented, Marquette is doing what it can to help with it.
Marquette’s Center for Health Education and Promotion has numerous programs set up for students, both to spread awareness and to help those who want to quit. Health Education will help to set up any student with a cessation clinic if wanted, as well as providing them with a “survival kit.”
The tobacco coalition has been established on campus, giving students, staff and administrators a chance to communicate the health risks of smoking. This organization is designed to further knowledge, and is in no way for or against those who smoke.
On Nov. 19, Marquette will participate in the American Cancer Society’s Great American Smokeout. This event asks all smokers at Marquette to cut back or quit smoking for that one day.
Whatever it is that gets someone to pick up that first cigarette doesn’t matter. The fact is that addiction keeps them coming back again and again. Media campaigns against smoking are changing the way facts are presented to the public, giving viewers the facts to make an educated decision on their own, with no pressure either way. With the limitless information on the Internet, it’s easier than ever to make an informed decision about smoking.
Tags: addiction, cigarettes, nicotine, smoking
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