Suicide Smoking and Unsticky Cigarettes Tipping Point Chapter
- Slides: 8
Suicide, Smoking, and Unsticky Cigarettes. Tipping Point Chapter Seven
Suicide Rates n Youth, ages 15 - 24 n USA: 22 per 100, 000 n Micronesia: 160 per 100, 000 – a ritual of adolescence, with its own particular rules and symbols. n Similar to a contagious epidemic of self destruction; spirit of experimentation, imitation, and rebellion.
Smoking Tobacco lies to the youth: “Smoking is not dangerous!” n Yet, they know it is. Cost of smoking estimates: n – Guess nine years, in reality about seven years. n Anti-smoking campaigns are useless: – 73% increase in teen smoking since 1988. n Smoking is contagious, like suicide, and for different reasons.
Smoking Sophisticated. Smoking personality: extroverts. n Deeply Cool People: n – They weren’t cool because they smoked – They smoked because they were cool Smoking was never cool. Smokers are cool! n And smoking is sticky! n Contagious is in large part a function of the messenger. n Stickiness is primarily a property of the message. n
Smoking n When smoking is contagious, but not sticky – Chippers (drink, get drunk, become alcoholic) n n n According to a 1999 study by the Institute of Medicine: Marijuana addicts 9% of its users Alcohol addicts 15% of users Heroin addicts 23% of users, and Tobacco addicts 32% of users.
War on Smoking Strategies Less contagious, or n Less sticky? n n The Nurture Assumption, 1999. It’s false. n Genetics are equal to environment. – Twin studies and adopted children studies Peers have the greatest influence. n Role of depression in smoking? n Nicotine threshold. 5 mg/day n
War on Drugs Contagious does not equal sticky n Experimentation is not addiction n Don’t fight experimentation, prevent serious consequences. (i. e. drinking age in England) n n An Amish ritual called rumspringa ("running around”)
Rumspringa: Youths to sample the previously forbidden delights of the outside world to their heart's content. n At this age Amish youth start having wild parties (organized by cell phone), premarital sex, and often hard drugs as well. n The Amish elders believe that the youth must be allowed to sow their wild oats, if they are ever to become good Amish later. n n An Amish elder says at one point, is really a vaccination. You get just enough of a taste of the outside world so that when you give it up you won't wonder what you're missing.
