If you’ve adopted or fostered an older child you may have had to deal with a teen smoker. The first time our daughter came to live with us we told her she absolutely could not smoke. This resulted in her sneaking cigarettes in the barn, which is a fire hazard and coming up with numerous excuses to go places so she could smoke. If she couldn’t get away to smoke she would become hostile or sleep. I guess you could say we put her into a position where she had to lie to us because she either wasn’t able or willing to quit.

The second time she came to live with us, a year ago, we told her she couldn’t smoke on our property and we would prefer that she quit. We do not buy her cigarettes, nor do we ask where she gets them. If they’re left out where I can see them I will confiscate and destroy them. As a result she can be seen several times a day standing in the road down by the cow pasture. We live out in the country where houses are few and far between so she’s become sort of the neighborhood marker and information relay.

We frequently tell her that she smells like smoke and sometimes I even open the car window when she rides with me if she has just finished smoking because I don’t like the smell. My son that is taking anatomy at college frequently shows her pictures of black lungs. However, she strongly desires to identify with her birth family and they are all smokers. She is aware of health risk and even had a birth brother die from SIDS. She can be down to smoking one cigarette a day at our house then go visit her family for the weekend and return home smoking a pack a day.

Research indicates the 90% of adult smokers became addicted prior to the age of 18 and apparently the younger you are when you start the harder your addiction is to give up. There is evidence that nicotine may be more addictive than cocaine and morphine. 12% of middle school children use some form of tobacco and 28% of high school students according to the 2005 CDC survey. Children and teens who try to quit smoking suffer the same withdrawal symptoms as those reported by adults. Worse new yet, young tobacco users are more likely to try alcohol and illegal drugs than adolescents who don’t use tobacco. Smoking also causes coughing, shortness of breath, production of phlegm, respiratory illnesses, and poorer lung growth and function in children. Smoking is responsible for the deaths of more than 430,000 Americans each year.

Cigarette smokers are also more likely to get into fights, carry weapons, attempt suicide, suffer from mental health problems such as depression, and engage in high-risk sexual behaviors.

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