Another possibly great possible breakthrough in the ongoing effort to write academic reports related to addiction. The discovery in this report:
Among children who do not smoke cigarettes, the ones who
- drink alcohol OR
- smoke marijuana OR
- have positive attitudes toward smoking cigarettes OR
- who have close friends who smoke cigarettes
might themselves some day become cigarette smokers, or they might not. The other children might not become cigarette smokers, but they might.
The study is:
“We do not smoke but some of us are more susceptible than others: A multilevel analysis of a sample of Canadian youth in grades 9 to 12,” Susan C. Kaai, K. Stephen Brown, Scott T. Leatherdale, Stephen R. Manske, Donna Murnaghan, Addictive Behaviors, epub April 21, 2014. The authors, at the University of Waterloo and the University of Prince Edward Island, explain:
“Smoking susceptibility has been found to be a strong predictor of experimental smoking. This paper examined which student- and school-level factors differentiated susceptible never smokers from non-susceptible never smokers among a nationally representative sample of Canadian students in grade 9 to 12…. Students in this study were more likely to be susceptible never smokers if they reported low self-esteem, held positive attitudes towards smoking, used alcohol or marijuana, had close friends who smoked, and came from homes without a total ban on smoking.”
How did the researchers identify which of the children were “susceptible” to becoming smokers, and which were not? Here’s how:
“Only the ‘never smokers’ were eligible to have a smoking susceptibility rating. Susceptibility was measured by asking students: (a) ‘Do you think in the future you might try smoking cigarettes?’ (b) ‘If one of your best friends were to offer you a cigarette, would you smoke it?’ and (c) ‘At any time during the next year do you think you will smoke a cigarette?’ Students responded to these questions on a 4-point Likert Scale. Consistent with Pierce et al. (1996) students who answered ‘definitely not’ to all three questions were considered non-susceptible; the rest were considered susceptible.”
NOTE: At right, here, are some numbers displayed in the study. You might find them to be meaningful.