Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults. We Can Make the Next Generation Tobacco-Free. A Report of the Surgeon General

摘要

Nearly all tobacco use begins during youth and young adulthood. Tobacco contains nicotine, a highly addictive drug that causes many young people to progress from smoking occasionally to smoking every day. Each day across the United States, more than 3,800 youth under age 18 smoke their first cigarette. Although much progress has been made to reduce the prevalence of smoking since the first Surgeon Generals report in 1964, today nearly one in four high school seniors and one in three young adults under age 26 smoke. Most young people dont consider the long-term health consequences associated with tobacco use when they start smoking. Because most high school smokers are not able to break free from the powerful, addicting effects of nicotine, about three out of four will smoke in adulthood. Among those who persist in smoking, one third will die about 13 years earlier than their nonsmoking peers. This Surgeon Generals 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.