Great American Smokeout

 Today is the Great American Smokeout. It'€™s a good notion; pick a day when tobacco smokers can quit all together in a spirit of community. If it were only that easy.

My father is a smoker. He'€™s been a smoker for over 60 years.He picked up the habit around age 14 in the mid 1940s when smoking was oh so cool.Later in his twenties he was a model on one of those big billboards, for Benson & Hedges.As a kid I remember him smoking Marlboros, which was fitting for him. He was born in Dallas, raised in Colorado, and had that mischievous Midwestern cowboy air about him.He really was a poster boy. 

My sister and I tried all sorts of tricks to get him to quit smoking. The most effective ruse almost gave him a heart attack while driving on the freeway.We were on a road trip one summer, camping throughout New England.We stopped at a trading post up by Moosehead Lake in Maine.We could each spend 50 cents and I bought small red canister, about the size of a quarter, with the label "€œCigarette Loads!"shouting out in white type. It was filled with about 20 thin and narrow white sticks that plug in to the end of a cigarette. Once a loaded cigarette was lit, the tail end exploded. Kind of like dynamite. Needless to say, there was danger involved. One time when my father lit up and the cigarette burst into white and brown petals, we were going a good 80 miles an hour along the interstate in an orange VW bus.No seat belts back then. Well, let'€™s just say we kids got chewed out. "€œGod Dammit!€" he stammered. We couldn'€™t help giggle under our breath, like we did in church on Sundays with our mom, and that made matters worse. 

But it didn'€™t stop us from trying. The real trick was to only load a few cigarettes in a pack, make sure to cover the white end with tobacco grounds, and watch in suspense every time Dad went for one (which was about 40 times a day). But it didn'€™t stop my father from smoking, either. Nothing would. He's suffered several strokes, endured quadruple bypass surgery and angioplasties, and has emphysema.I'€™m surprised he'€™s still alive. He'€™s the great American Smoker. I'€™m astonished to learn that one can still buy Cigarette Loads for about $2.95. The packaging isn'€™t as cool -- and it turns out that minors aren't allowed to buy them.

And here'€™s the thing. Teens are particularly vulnerable to nicotine. Each year there are 700,000 new smokers and they are mostly youth. Research shows that only a few drags results in addictive symptoms. The adolescent brain gets marinated in the awful stuff just at the time when the neural pathways are growing and making new connections and fine-tuning cognitive functions, like decision-making and problem solving.In a study of 30,000 teen smokers in New Zealand results indicate that by the time one smokes 100 cigarettes (just a few packs), 95% report addictive symptoms.This is because nicotine has a calming effect on the brain, and the brain becomes accustomed to craving it. The real trick is to not start in the first place.

Price, Michael. Against doctor's orders: New research reveals why smoking is so easy to start and so hard to quit. APA Monitor, November 2008.