By Mary Chan
Who ever thought separation anxiety could get this bad? For the 37.8 per cent of the 18-24 age group who smoke, escaping the nasty nicotine habit is something they have tried to do, often without success.
"It was the case that if you didn’t start smoking before the age of 18 you were probably never going to start, but that’s no longer true," said Anne Fraser, Project Coordinator for Youth in the Calgary Health Region’s Tobacco Reduction Department. "There is a new initiation period for 18- to 24-year-olds who start socially smoking, which in some cases leads to addiction."
New smoking bylaws came into effect Mar. 1 2003 as a transitional measure so that by Jan. 1, 2008, all of Calgary’s public places will be smoke-free. Given that expenditures for smoking-related diseases cost Calgary hospitals around $30 million annually, this move by the city is not surprising.
Additionally, tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease, death and disability in Calgary. Fraser lists arsenic, benzene and ammonia as just a few of the 4,000 chemical compounds in a single cigarette.
Continuous exposure to the toxins in cigarettes creates risks like cancer, heart disease, hypertension and osteoporosis. So, why do more than five million people in Canada continue to smoke and expose not only themselves to these risks, but non-smokers as well?
"Nicotine is considered to be one of the most addictive drugs and that is related to the frequency which a person is reinforced, "said Psychology Professor David Hodgins. "With each puff of a cigarette, there is immediate reinforcement physiologically because of the types of chemicals and the way it is administered."
Hodgins explained because there are multiple puffs in a cigarette and multiple cigarettes smoked in a day, the frequency of reinforcement is much higher in smoking than in other drug habits.
Over a smoke, second-year law students Toby Schultz and Jose Rodriguez reflect on their habit.
"I think it does relax you," said Schultz, who has been smoking since he was 12. "It forces you to slow down your breathing. I have a friend who believes that it reproduces the physiological acts of meditation."
Rodriguez, now 24, began smoking later, at age 20.
"For me, smoking was never something foreign," he explained. "My father smokes, many people in my family smoke… it seemed natural for me to smoke."
However, Rodriguez has some second thoughts about smoking.
"It affects me negatively in terms of my workouts," said Rodriguez. "I am supposed to be going for a run right now and I just had a cigarette."
Forty-four per cent of people in Rodriguez’s age group are interested in quitting but haven’t. Rodriguez said he also tried to quit once.
"I went three months without smoking cigarettes… and I started smoking cigars; a Cuban every few days. It was a little out of my price range," said Rodriguez.
Rodriguez spends $40 on cigarettes a week and Schultz spends about $60. Fraser explains that, in the 20-24 age group, often the main motivation for quitting is the cost associated with smoking.
Schultz, who has attempted to quit twice before has started to contemplate quitting again recently.
"I’d spend a week cutting down before I would stop altogether," said Schultz. "I found I ate a lot more, but I was also a lot more productive. Smoking involves a lot of killing time. Sometimes an hour or two a day just waiting while you finish your cigarette."
Fraser agreed quitting isn’t easy.
"Most people do want to quit, it’s just very difficult," Fraser said.
Some quitting techniques include nicotine replacement therapy (such as nicotine patches and nicotine gum), counselling and group cessation programs, as well as less traditional methods such as hypnosis, acupuncture and laser therapy.
Hodgins explained the steps in quitting smoking are related to a psychological "stages of change" model.
In the first pre-contemplative phase, the smoker doesn’t recognize their addiction. In the second stage, the contemplative phase, the smoker recognizes the habit and the reasons to stop become apparent, but the reasons to continue are still persuasive. In the third phase, the termination phase, something tips the balance towards quitting.
"This then puts you into the action phase, where you take steps to stop, like throwing away your cigarettes and getting the patch," Hodgins explained.
If successful, the smoker then progresses into the final maintenance phase where they don’t use as many action strategies for cessation.
"The cycle takes a number of weeks, if not a number of months," said Hodgins. "More realistically, a person will relapse and go back to the beginning of the cycle five to six times before they are successful in quitting."
While this is not overly encouraging news for smokers who are trying to quit, there are plenty of resources that can help.
University Health Clinic Manager Diane Klatzel encourages students who are trying to quit to make an appointment with a doctor.
"Everyone knows that smoking affects your health and that is definitely a concern for us," she explained. "We want to keep the student population healthy and anything that goes towards that goal definitely involves us."