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| |    Cigarettes: Still a Threat to Children by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P. reviewed by Laura Jana, M.D., F.A.A.P. You may have noticed the headlines: According to the latest government-sponsored survey, the number of children smoking cigarettes is down and has fallen steadily over the last four or five years. That certainly is good news. But smoking and smokeless tobacco are still a very serious threat to children. How many children smoke? In eighth grade, one child in seven is a smoker. The survey counts as "smokers" those children who report that they have had at least one cigarette in the last 30 days. While a few of these have just tried once, many of them are smoking regularly. One in fifteen eighth-graders smokes daily. By tenth grade, one quarter of children are smokers, and one in seven smokes daily. By twelfth grade, one third of children are smokers, and one in five smokes daily. Believe it or not, these numbers are lower than they were five years ago. In fact, the amount of smoking by children in the latest survey is about equal to the amount reported in 1991. The numbers rose sharply, peaked in 1994, and have been coming down since then. Even though the trend has been down, it would be a mistake to assume that the numbers will just keep falling. The progress that has been made has a lot to do with hard work by parents and teachers to educate children about the dangers of tobacco, and can also be credited to laws and lawsuits that have limited the ability of tobacco companies to market their products to children. But cigarettes are still marketed in less obvious ways--through celebrities who smoke and sponsorships of sporting events, for example. Unless parents and others continue to work to protect children from cigarettes, the numbers are likely to rise again. What children know about cigarettes The good news is that children nowadays are more aware of the dangers of smoking than they were five years ago. For example, among eighth-graders, 59 percent said that they thought smoking a pack of cigarettes a day posed a serious health risk, up from 50 percent in 1995. By twelfth grade, 73 percent now believe that smoking a pack per day is highly risky. The bad news is, looking at the very same statistics, many children still are in the dark. By eighth grade, when the temptation to smoke is strong and the dangers of becoming addicted high, fully four out of ten children don't know how dangerous smoking is. Laws limiting children's ability to buy cigarettes help, of course, but most children still report that they have easy access to these goods. Not only do 87 percent of twelfth-graders have easy access, but so do 69 percent of eighth-graders. If children want cigarettes, they can get them. Where these numbers come from The statistics in this article come from an ongoing study of children and drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, called Monitoring the Future. The study is a survey of thousands of children across the country, chosen to be representative of the U.S. child population. See the Monitoring the Future website to read more.
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