Nicotine, the gateway drug

[juliet]

So, after years of cannabis legalisation campaigners pointing out that "no one says that smoking cigarettes leads to harder drugs", now they are doing.

My immediate reaction to that was to question where the causation is here. Is it really that starting smoking too early leads to the misuse of other drugs later on; or is it that those most likely to start smoking early are also those most likely to later abuse other drugs - that the two things share common explanatory factors, rather than one explaining the other? My own feeling (although I would like to see figures on this) is that the latter is more likely. And this is important, of course, because it affects how the problems should be tackled (I note that I don't necessarily see *use* of drugs/alcohol as a problem; but *abuse* certainly is). Just getting these kids to quit smoking isn't going to help if the reasons they started smoking in the first place, the reasons which are going to make them more likely to abuse other drugs, are still there.

Of course, this *is* a newspaper report, and thus it is entirely possible that the doctors in question were saying something much more like that than like what the journalist appears to be reporting them as saying.

And it's also, of course, an indication of the increasing disapproval of smoking. Ten years ago, when I was 17, I can't imagine this sort of thing being taken all that seriously, somehow - certainly banning smoking in public places over here would have seemed peculiar in the extreme (I found it very odd, 6 years ago, being in California and not being able to smoke in clubs/bars, and certainly didn't think it likely at the time that this would spread). My own opinion has changed as well, mind - at that time I felt that smokiness was just *part* of pubs and clubs, and to be dealt with; now I'll be quite happy to see it go (& I thought that even before I stopped smoking). Although it will be a bit of a trial in certain sorts of clubs, where I tend to be in a state where nicotine is *really nice*... ;-) Getting old, though.

Comments

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Nicotine is fantastic, if you don't use it very often.
Mmmmm. Headrush.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I'm very much with 'common explanatory factors' here. The obvious one being, they're fun. And hence, to the blasted neo-Puritans, exactly the same threat.
(nb I don't really do either, but that's just because they don't agree with me)

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I hate smoking in clubs and pubs. I don't want my friends to feel alienated but it's vile.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I have reached the point where I don't care if they do.

[vardebedian.livejournal.com]

Malcolm Gladwell's book "The Tipping Point" has a couple of excellent chapters at the end on causes of smoking.

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Judging by the kids at our school, the ones smoking cigarettes behind the bikesheds aged 12 were generally the ones smoking weed behind the bikesheds aged 17. The boys, that is. The girls had either given up by that age or were getting preggers instead of getting cained. I managed to skip the smoking and the weed and move straight on to binge drinking :-)

However there were also plenty of people at my school who were *disgusted* by cigarettes and thought they would kill you instantly if you breathed one in, but were quite happy to take the odd puff on a j. *shakes head in wonder*

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

One clever thing my school did was to mete out the same punishments to anyone "found in the presence of another girl smoking or drinking" as to the offenders. This was probably just so they didn't have to catch you actually in the act, but had the effect of making it equally cool to be hanging out with people smoking or drinking as to be smoking yourself.
So I never bothered with smoking myself. On the other hand, I'd already tried most other substances, so I guess the gateway didn't go backwards.

[(Anonymous)]

smoking in pubs/clubs ought to be up to the owners of the establishments. let the market decide whether smoking or non-smoking bars are preferable. the ban it approach is tyrannical and hugely unnecessary.