Advertising Promotes Teen Smoking

New research suggests that teens who spend a lot of time hanging around convenience stores are more likely to smoke, even if they are not the type of kids considered to be delinquents, according to a report in the American Journal of Public Health.

While the findings do not point to anything other than a possible link between the stores and smoking, they are raising a red flag among researchers who fear the glut of tobacco advertising in convenience stores is having a major impact on young customers.

"It's the only unregulated frontier for this kind of marketing," explains study co-author Dr. Lisa Henriksen, a senior research scientist at Stanford University's Prevention Research Center.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a national survey found that about 86 percent of adolescent smokers who bought their own cigarettes preferred Marlboro, Camel, or Newport cigarettes - the most heavily advertised brands. In contrast, only 35 percent of adults chose these brands.

And studies show that about 57 percent of students in grades nine through 12 who currently smoke usually buy their cigarettes from a retail store, from a vending machine, or through another person who purchased cigarettes for them.

Study Results Point to Convenience Stores

In the spring of 2003, Dr. Henriksen and her colleagues surveyed 2,125 middle-school students in the Northern California city of Tracy. They asked the children about their smoking habits and their visits to small grocery, convenience, and liquor stores.

About a quarter of the students visited the stores at least once a day; about two-thirds visited at least once a week.

The researchers found that those who were exposed to tobacco marketing in the stores at least once a week were more likely to smoke.

The researchers then tinkered with the numbers to test the theory that "kids who are up to no good hang out at stores," Dr. Henriksen says.

They tried to remove the influence of factors such as race, gender, age, exposure to other tobacco advertising, and "propensity for risk-taking," a rough measurement of a kid's tolerance for getting into hot water.

Even so, the study still found that kids who visited the stores regularly were 50 percent more likely to smoke.

"That was a compelling result," Dr. Henriksen notes, although she cautioned that the study does not prove that visits to the stores make kids smoke. It only shows a link between the two activities.

Tobacco Advertising in Limited Places

According to the study, the tobacco industry spends more on in-store advertising than all other forms of advertising combined - $9.5 billion vs. $1.7 billion in 2001. Tobacco companies cannot advertise on television or radio, and a 1998 settlement with the federal government banned billboard advertising.

The study "shows that the tobacco industry is still able to use the loopholes in the settlement to very effectively market to kids," says Dr. Stanton A. Glantz, director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research at the University of California, San Francisco.

Advertising through store displays "may be less efficient for them, but they have enough money and cigarettes are profitable enough that they're able to use a somewhat less-efficient advertising medium," he says.

"The cigarette companies wouldn't be spending billions of dollars doing this if it didn't work," Dr. Glantz says.

Always consult your child's physician for more information.

Online Resources

American Academy of Pediatrics

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

National Institute of Child Health & Human Development

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

January 2005

Advertising Promotes Teen Smoking

Study Results Point to Convenience Stores

Tobacco Advertising in Limited Places

Youth Smoking Facts

Online Resources

Other Resources:

Find a St. John's Mercy Physician

Children's Services at St. John's Mercy

Children's Health Information

St. John's Mercy Classes and Programs

Youth Smoking Facts

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every day in the US, more than 3,000 young people become regular smokers - that is more than one million new smokers each year.

After years of remaining steady, teen smoking rates have increased each year since 1992. In 1996, 22.2 percent of high school seniors smoked daily, up from 17.2 percent in 1992. Between 1991 and 1996, past-month smoking increased from 14.3 percent to 21 percent among 8th graders and from 20.8 percent to 30.4 percent among 10th graders.

More than 5 million young people under the age of 18 who are currently alive will die prematurely from a smoking-related disease.

In adults, cigarette smoking causes heart disease and stroke. Studies have shown that early signs of the blood vessel damage present in these diseases can be found in adolescents who smoke.

Starting smoking at an early age greatly increases the risk of lung cancer. A person's risk for most other smoking-related cancers also rises with the length of time that a person smokes.

Teenage smokers suffer from shortness of breath almost three times as often as teens who do not smoke and produce phlegm more than twice as often as teens who don't smoke.

Smokeless tobacco use among youth is a continuing problem. Data from recent school-based surveys indicate that about one in every five male students in 9th through 12th grades uses smokeless tobacco.

Smokeless tobacco can cause gum disease and cancer of the mouth, pharynx, and esophagus. It may also increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.

In 1991, teenage cigarette smokers consumed an average of 28.3 million cigarettes per day (516 million packs per year). During this same period, an estimated 225 million packs of cigarettes were sold illegally to young people under the age of 18. The tobacco industry generated approximately $190 million in profit from the illegal sale of cigarettes to minors in 1991.

Several studies have found nicotine to be addictive in ways similar to those of heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.  Among young smokers, the transition from experimentation to dependence occurs just as frequently as it does among users of cocaine and heroin.

Young people who try to quit smoking suffer the same withdrawal symptoms as adults who try to quit.

Always consult your child's physician for a diagnosis.