Human Services News

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Most teenagers who smoke cigarettes make repeated attempts to quit but most are unsuccessful, according to new research from the Universite de Montreal and funded by the Canadian Cancer Society.

"The study found that teen smokers make their first serious attempt to quit after only two and a half months of smoking, and by the time they have smoked for 21 months they have lost confidence in their ability to quit," says Dr. Jennifer O'Loughlin, the study's lead author and a researcher from the Université de Montréal's department of social and preventive medicine.

The study, published online (today) in the American Journal of Public Health, found that teen smokers progress through stages or milestones in their attempts to stop smoking.

About two years after starting to smoke cigarettes daily, teen smokers are showing full-blown tobacco dependence.

The study found that more than 70 percent of the teens expressed a desire to quit, but only 19 percent actually managed to stop smoking for 12 months or more by the end of the five-year study.

Girls were more likely than boys to want to quit and to attempt quitting.

"This research suggests that much more needs to be done to prompt teenagers to quit in terms of programming, legislation and taxation.

In particular, federal and provincial governments must get the contraband situation under control -- cheap cigarettes discourage teen smokers from quitting.

"Milestones in the process of cessation among novice smokers," by Jennifer O'Loughlin published in American Journal of Public Health, was funded by the Canadian Cancer Society.

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