This article: decline in teen smoking hits a wall talks about the need to ‘get the message out there’ and so forth but exactly what is the message that smokers haven’t heard.

I really don’t think that people who smoke haven’t heard the startlingly new information that smoking causes cancers, heart disease, impotence, infertility, depression, osteoporosis etc-if we can find something else for teenagers (of all ages) to rebel against that doesn’t involve ageing themselves prematurely maybe we should be focusing on that. I know I know I’m being glib here and of course health messages should be amplified as regards the dangers of smoking but the point is that so much of what we do is done because other people tell us it is not good for us.

Rebels often want to shock and to stick to fingers up at society-to a youth thirty is the over side of the moon, heart disease is what their grand parents get and fifteen year old boys have the opposite to impotence (whatever that is!). The teen brain has less connectivity between the pre-frontal lobes and the emotional centers so future consequences take a back seat.

Trying to appeal to current teenagers as if they are middle aged baby boomers concerned about staying fit and healthy may be the wrong (or the partly wrong) approach. Making something extremely expensive does run the risk of making it more attractive but would also make it less of an easy ‘rebel tool’. See: Are you in a smoking cult?

Mark