TOBACCO ADDICTION: TRUE or FALSE

1. Tobacco tolerance is the need for increasing amounts of nicotine to produce the same desired effect and is the main reason occasional (beginner) smokers become regular smokers.

True

2. Thirty to fifty percent of teenagers who start smoking only very occasionally will become regular (daily) smokers.

True

3. Most teenagers who smoke regularly can quit anytime they want. The habit is usually not permanent.

False: Most teenagers who smoke regularly are already addicted to nicotine and can't quit even though they want to. Three out of four teenagers who smoke have made at least one serious yet unsuccessful effort to quit.

4. It takes more than three years of regular smoking to become addicted to nicotine.

False: Addiction to nicotine occurs, on average, after 2-3 years of the first (occasional) use of tobacco and in some individuals, nicotine addiction can occur within one month of first tobacco use. (e.g., after smoking only five packs of cigarettes).

5. Fifty percent of smokers who try quitting are able to stop smoking for at least one year.

False: More than 75% of smokers who try quitting, can't quit even for one year.

6. Tobacco addiction is the uncontrolled dependence on and the uncontrolled use of tobacco. On any given quit attempt, less than 5% of regular smokers successfully quit long term on their own.

True: With comprehensive help (i.e. a stop smoking program, physician counseling and pharmacotherapy) perhaps 25% of regular smokers successfully quit long term.

7. Tobacco companies deny that cigarettes are addictive.

False: Liggett Tobacco Company and more recently, Philip Morris Tobacco Company (makers of Marlboro) have admitted that their cigarettes are addictive.