Addiction and Other Reasons Adolescent Smokers Give to Justify Smoking

The Relationship Between Tobacco and Cannabis Use: A Review

BACKGROUND

Based on the prevalence and health implications of tobacco and cannabis use, aiming to reduce their use, especially among youth, is a sound objective at both the individual and public health level. A proper understanding of the relationships between tobacco and cannabis use may help to achieve this goal.

OBJECTIVES

To review the relationships between tobacco and cannabis use.

METHODS

A selective review of the literature.

RESULTS

We present an overview of the motivations for tobacco and cannabis use, and their perceived harmfulness. The article then reviews the gateway theory, reverse gateway theory, route of administration theory, and common liability theory. We describe the link between co-use and dependence symptoms, and the substitution phenomenon between tobacco and cannabis use. Three forms of simultaneous use-mulling, blunt smoking, and chasing-and their impacts are explained. We summarize the impact of tobacco use on cannabis (and vice versa) treatment outcomes, and, finally, review new treatments that simultaneously target tobacco and cannabis dependence. Most of the literature reviewed here relates to substance use among adolescents and young adults.

CONCLUSIONS

The use of tobacco and cannabis-two of the most widely used substances around the world-are strongly intertwined in several respects. Both health professionals and researchers should have well-informed views on this issue to better evaluate, understand, inform, and provide care to their patients.

Visibility of smoking among school-teachers in Spain and associations with student smoking: a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVE

Limited research has examined the association between smoking among schoolteachers and student smoking. This paper seeks to assess whether smoking visibility on school grounds among schoolteachers is associated with student smoking. We examine both smoking behaviour and the number of cigarettes consumed.

METHODS

We use a school-based cross-sectional survey carried out by the Spanish Government's Delegation for the National Plan on Drugs. A total of 27 503 students between 14 and 18 years of age completed an anonymous survey in 2013. Count data regressions were used to assess the association between observed teacher smoking and adolescent smoking behaviour.

RESULTS

High levels of visibility of teacher smoking on school grounds increased the odds of being a smoker among students (OR=2.09 and OR=1.64, for the highest levels of visibility), but the impact on the quantity of cigarettes smoked, although positive, was not significant.

CONCLUSION

Teacher smoking on school grounds is associated with student smoking behaviour. Consequently, smoking policies designed to prevent adolescent smoking should address this important social environment.

Personal Values as a Mediator of Relations Between Perceived Parental Support and Control and Youth Substance Use

BACKGROUND

Tobacco and marijuana smoking are very popular in adolescence and there is a high rate of comorbidity between them, even in young adulthood. Parental support and control may hinder involvement in the use of these substances by promoting conventional values among adolescents.

OBJECTIVES

The present study investigates the relations between family functioning (parental support and control) and psychoactive substance use (tobacco and marijuana smoking) and determines whether these relationships are mediated by personal values (in terms of disapproval of deviance and beliefs about the importance of school, health and religion).

METHODS

175 Italian late adolescents (17 to 20 years old) participated in this two-wave longitudinal study. Data were collected at school through an anonymous questionnaire.

RESULTS

Greater parental control and support were directly associated with lower adolescent tobacco and marijuana use; adolescent acceptance of conventional values mediated the association between parenting and adolescent marijuana use.

CONCLUSION

Findings emphasize the influence of family relationships throughout adolescence. The transmission of conventional values to adolescents may be a critical mechanism through which parenting protects adolescents from substance use, especially marijuana use.