According to a Feb. 4 article by Michael Felberbaum of the Miami Herald, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is concerned that a new type of smokeless tobacco products may be attractive to teenagers and young adults, and could lead to increases in tobacco use and addiction among young people:

The FDA's Center for Tobacco Products wrote to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., maker of Camel cigarettes, and the smaller Star Scientific Inc. on Monday voicing concern over smokeless products that are consumed like breath mints but made from finely milled tobacco.

"CTP is concerned that children and adolescents may find dissolvable tobacco products particularly appealing, given the brightly colored packaging, candy-like appearance and easily concealable size of many of these products," Dr. Lawrence Deyton, director of the Center for Tobacco Products, told the companies.

Deyton said regulators are worried the products' nicotine content and rapid dissolution could cause nicotine dependence and addiction and be especially dangerous to children and young adults.

Labels: tobacco use

Minority boys who smoke are more likely to light up when they think they are being victimized by discrimination, according to a new study from Indiana University. The same does not hold true for minority girls.

Researchers studied 2,561 black and Latino teenagers, of which 12 percent were smokers.

"Boys and girls may experience discrimination differently due to where they spend their time, and that may account for the differences in whether discrimination was associated with increased smoking. The context of discrimination matters," according to the report, which was published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Labels: boys, discrimination, tobacco use

A new report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration found that 70 percent of teenagers believe smoking one or more packs of cigarettes a day poses a health risk.

"But when they were asked about binge drinking, defined as five or more drinks once or twice a week, only 40 percent thought there was a major risk," the report's authors wrote. "Only 32 percent of those asked believed smoking marijuana once a month posed a major risk."

The results were based on survey responses from nearly 50,000 adolescents and teenagers (ages 12 to 17).

Labels: dangers-of-drug-use, tobacco use

Why do some teenagers start smoking? Why do some become heavy smokers? Researchers from the University of Montreal set out to find the answers to these questions.

• Dr. Jennifer O’Loughlin and her colleagues studied 877 students for five years starting when they were 13-years old.
  
• None of the children were smoking at the beginning of the study.
  
• By the time participants were 18 years old, 48 percent were smoking.
  
• Among the smoking group, 21 percent of the teens were smoking every day.

Dr. O’Loughlin's research team drew the following conclusions from their research:

• Children from single-family homes and those who perform poorly in school are at increased risk of becoming smokers.
  
• Having parents, teachers, siblings, and/or friends who smoke increase their risk by two or three times.
  
• Teenagers who felt stressed, and had trouble controlling their impulses were also more likely to smoke.

Some factors that did not increase the risk for teen smoking included gender, parents’ education, depression, worries about weight, excessive risk taking, involvement in sports, and television watching.

The study appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Labels: research, smoking, teenagers, tobacco use