This booklet for schools, medical personnel, and parents contains highlights from the 2012 Surgeon General's report on tobacco use among youth and teens (ages 12 through 17) and young adults (ages 18 through 25). The report details the causes and the consequences of tobacco use among youth and young adults by focusing on the social, environmental, advertising, and marketing influences that encourage youth and young adults to initiate and sustain tobacco use. This is the first time tobacco data on young adults as a discrete population have been explored in detail. The report also highlights successful strategies to prevent young people from using tobacco.
This report considers the biological and behavioral mechanisms that may underlie the pathogenicity of tobacco smoke. Many Surgeon General's reports have considered research findings on mechanisms in assessing the biological plausibility of associations observed in epidemiologic studies. Mechanisms of disease are important because they may provide plausibility, which is one of the guideline criteria for assessing evidence on causation. This report specifically reviews the evidence on the potential mechanisms by which smoking causes diseases and considers whether a mechanism is likely to be operative in the production of human disease by tobacco smoke. This evidence is relevant to understanding how smoking causes disease, to identifying those who may be particularly susceptible, and to assessing the potential risks of tobacco products.
The health and economic costs of tobacco use in military and veteran populations are high. In 2007, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) requested that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) make recommendations on how to reduce tobacco initiation and encourage cessation in both military and veteran populations. In its 2009 report, Combating Tobacco in Military and Veteran Populations, the authoring committee concludes that to prevent tobacco initiation and encourage cessation, both DoD and VA should implement comprehensive tobacco-control programs.
Recently identified as a killer, tobacco has been the focus of health warnings, lawsuits, and political controversy. Yet many Native Americans continue to view tobacco-when used properly-as a life-affirming and sacramental substance that plays a significant role in Native creation myths and religious ceremonies. This definitive work presents the origins, history, and contemporary use (and misuse) of tobacco by Native Americans. It describes wild and domesticated tobacco species and how their cultivation and use may have led to the domestication of corn, potatoes, beans, and other food plants. It also analyzes many North American Indian practices and beliefs, including the concept that Tobacco is so powerful and sacred that the spirits themselves are addicted to it. The book presents medical data revealing the increasing rates of commercial tobacco use by Native youth and the rising rates of death among Native American elders from lung cancer, heart disease, and other tobacco-related illnesses. Finally, this volume argues for the preservation of traditional tobacco use in a limited, sacramental manner while criticizing the use of commercial tobacco. Contributors are: Mary J. Adair, Karen R. Adams, Carol B. Brandt, Linda Scott Cummings, Glenna Dean, Patricia Diaz-Romo, Jannifer W. Gish, Julia E. Hammett, Robert F. Hill, Richard G. Holloway, Christina M. Pego, Samuel Salinas Alvarez, Lawrence A Shorty, Glenn W. Solomon, Mollie Toll, Suzanne E. Victoria, Alexander von Garnet, Jonathan M. Samet, and Gail E. Wagner.
Why do people smoke? Taking a unique approach to this question, Jason Hughes moves beyond the usual focus on biological addiction that dominates news coverage and public health studies and invites us to reconsider how social and personal understandings of smoking crucially affect the way people experience it. Learning to Smoke examines the diverse sociological and cultural processes that have compelled people to smoke since the practice was first introduced to the West during the sixteenth century. Hughes traces the transformations of tobacco and its use over time, from its role as a hallucinogen in Native American shamanistic ritual to its use as a prophylactic against the plague and a cure for cancer by early Europeans, and finally to the current view of smoking as a global pandemic. He then analyzes tobacco from the perspective of the individual user, exploring how its consumption relates to issues of identity and life changes. Comparing sociocultural and personal experiences, Hughes ultimately asks what the patterns of tobacco use mean for the clinical treatment of smokers and for public policy on smoking. Pointing the way, then, to a more learned and sophisticated understanding of tobacco use, this study will prove to be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of smoking and the sociology of addiction.
Tobacco use by adolescents and young adults poses serious concerns. Nearly all adults who have ever smoked daily first tried a cigarette before 26 years of age. Current cigarette use among adults is highest among persons aged 21 to 25 years. The parts of the brain most responsible for cognitive and psychosocial maturity continue to develop and change through young adulthood, and adolescent brains are uniquely vulnerable to the effects of nicotine. At the request of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Public Health Implications of Raising the Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products considers the likely public health impact of raising the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products. The report reviews the existing literature on tobacco use patterns, developmental biology and psychology, health effects of tobacco use, and the current landscape regarding youth access laws, including minimum age laws and their enforcement. Based on this literature, the report makes conclusions about the likely effect of raising the minimum age to 19, 21, and 25 years on tobacco use initiation. The report also quantifies the accompanying public health outcomes based on findings from two tobacco use simulation models. According to the report, raising the minimum age of legal access to tobacco products, particularly to ages 21 and 25, will lead to substantial reductions in tobacco use, improve the health of Americans across the lifespan, and save lives. Public Health Implications of Raising the Minimum Age of Legal Access to Tobacco Products will be a valuable reference for federal policy makers and state and local health departments and legislators.
This is the 11th IARC Handbook of Cancer Prevention, and the first in a series focusing on tobacco control. It reviews the scientific literature and evaluates the evidence on changes in the risk of cancer, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, abdominal aortic aneurysm, peripheral artery disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease observed following smoking cessation. It considers whether the risk of dying from or of developing these diseases decreases after smoking cessation, the time course of the change in risk and whether the risk returns to that of never-smokers? The review and evaluation presented in the Handbook goes on to identify relevant public health and research recommendations.
