When a young person starts to smoke or use tobacco, it is a signal, an alarm that he or she may get involved in other risky behaviors. This is one of the few early warning signs we have in public health. If we can prevent tobacco use in the first place, we might have a big impact on preventing or delaying a host of other destructive behaviors among our young people. Tobacco is officially recognized as an addictive drug. The tobacco companies discovered decades ago that if they removed the nicotine, the addictive element, people stopped buying the tobacco products.
Tobacco is also a gateway drug for teenagers.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a federal government agency, teens get hooked on tobacco by the time they are 12 to 14 years old. There is a dramatic association between smoking and illicit drug use. Daily use of any illicit drug other than marijuana was 13 times as high among smokers as nonsmokers. There is also a dramatic relationship between smoking and use of alcohol. Smoking cigarettes prepares young people for the relevant mode of ingestion for one of the next drugs in the sequence - namely marijuana.