Ask a smoker when he or she began to smoke, and chances are you will hear the tale of a child. The image of children sneaking away to experiment with tobacco is a familiar one, and people often consider smoking a rite of passage. But many young people progress steadily from experimentation to regular use, with addiction taking hold within a few years, making the image more disconcerting. Between one third and one half of adolescents who try smoking even just a few cigarettes soon become regular smokers. Young people's addiction to nicotine is not limited to smoking.
Many children also use smokeless tobacco, such as snuff and chewing tobacco.
Of the 6 million people in this country who use smokeless tobacco, as many as 1 in 4 is under the age of 19 years. An understanding of the forces that encourage tobacco use by children and adolescents, including industry marketing and easy access, is an essential ingredient in the development of a public policy to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with smoking. Young people are the tobacco industry's primary source of new customers in this country, replacing adults who have either quit smoking or died. As the prevalence of smoking among adults in the United States has steadily declined, the prevalence among adolescents has remained unchanged or even increased slightly. Smoking prevalence among college freshmen rose from 9 percent in 1985 to 13 percent in 1994.