Agenda Packets - 1989/12/04 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Detailed Findings Initial Smoking Behavior On average, the teens included in this study started smoking at the age of thirteen. There was not a lot of difference between the males and females as to when they started smoking. The teens were asked to express in their own words the reasons why they started smoking. They indicated that the primary motivator was knowing someone else who smoked (58%). This other person was usually a friend (42%). Social pressure also played a role in the teens' trial of cigarettes (30%). Friends who smoked were both the main reasons why others started and the main source of cigarettes for these new initiates. Almost three in five of the teens (57%) said that their main source of cigarettes when they first started smoking was their friends. Unlike the others, the teens who started smoking before they were ten years old were equally Iikely to rely on their friends and on family members for cigarettes. Most of the teens who primarily got their cigarettes by purchasing them when they first started smoking bought them over-the-counter (84%) and not from a vending machine (only 16%). Current Cigarette Consumption The teens were asked about their daily and weekly cigarette consumption. On average, these teens smoked half a pack of cigarettes the day before the interview. Additionally, the average male smoked more (11 cigarettes) than the average female (9 cigarettes). As can be expected, the younger teens smoked less than the older teens. In fact, the 17 year olds smoked twice as many cigarettes as the 13 year olds (14 cigarettes vs. 7 cigarettes on average). The number of cigarettes that the teens reported smoking in the week before the interview was slightly less than seven times their reported daily consumption. On average, the males smoked just over 3 and a half packs (73 cigarettes) and the females had smoked just over two and a half packs (56 cigarettes); while the youngest teens smoked about half as much as the oldest teens (13 year olds-45 cigarettes and 17 year olds--88 cigarettes). N