Teenage Smoking Health Risk

Smoking and other uses of nicotine have been positively associated with cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, emphysema, premature births and low birthweight, and bladder, throat, and lung cancer, among other serious health problems. Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to nicotine addiction. Oklahoma's State Department of Health reports that more than 105,000 Oklahoma children are tobacco users, with the equivalent of two classrooms getting "hooked" every day. Indeed, since 1998, the year of the multistate tobacco settlement, an estimated 40,590 persons under age 18 have become daily smokers (OSDH, 2001).

The hazards of smoking are a commonplace of health-care education, but the habit persists. And Oklahoma remains far more a part of the problem than a part of the solution. Nicotine addiction that begins in childhood and adolescence sets up the affected population for early onset of opportunistic health problems and a concomitant drain on public- and private-sector health-care resources. Meanwhile, tobacco-related deaths come

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, classroom, and counter-marketing initiatives consistently over time" (OSDH, 2001). What these initiatives share is a commitment to reaching children and teenagers when they are most vulnerable to the relentless mass-media messages that may foster tobacco use. No less significant is the fact that OSDH urges the wisdom of "youth-led activities," i.e, of involving members of populations targeted by tobacco manufacturers in "designing and implementing community, classroom, counter-marketing, and cessation programs" (OSDH, 2001). It follows that to the degree the antismoking knowledge base grows from the inside rather than being imposed from the outside, there is mores chance that the message will be received and acted on rather than ignored. It is proposed that an incentive-based learning-and-internalization opportunity be made available to high-school students in Beckham County that is designed to increase awareness of facts, risks, and costs associated with tobacco use. What will increase the awareness will be that the students will discover the facts for themselves--rather than have them force-fed by teachers, health books, and so on. The incentive will come in the form of cash prizes for antismoking essays researched and writt
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Approximate Word count = 2087
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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