As part of its province wide survey of smoking prevalence, the Angus Reid Group conducted a special investigation of teenage smoking using survey and focus group research methods. For the purposes of the investigation, the teen population was defined as persons between 12 and 19 years of age.

Survey research was conducted among 1448 teens selected from an RDD (Random Digit Dialing) sample of households in the province, resulting in an error margin of ± 2.6 %, 19 times out of 20. Data from teenaged respondents to other survey instruments in the investigation were also analyzed; segmentation results from the Advanced Survey included 185 teens and provide results accurate within a ± 7.2% margin of error, 19 times out of 20. For a detailed description of the methodology and copies of the questionnaire please refer to the provincial report titled "Tobacco Use in British Columbia, 1997."

Four focus groups were conducted with male and female teen smokers, using recruits from the survey sample with additional random screening in the Greater Vancouver area.

Approximately one in five B.C. teenagers is a current cigarette smoker - 16% can be classified as current daily smokers, while another four percent are current non-daily smokers. Alternate tobacco usage is low among teens and tends to be limited to occasional experimentation.

While the overall prevalence of smoking among teens is in line with smoking prevalence in the province at large, there are some substantial differences within teenage demographic subgroups.

The prevalence of smoking ranges from six percent among young teens between ages 12-14, increases to 25% among those 15-18 and finally peaks at 31% among 19-24 year olds. While smoking prevalence has tended to drop off during adulthood, the high prevalence among older teenage subgroups suggests that a substantial part of the population goes through a few years of sustained exposure to tobacco smoke, both from primary smoking and from secondary exposure to smoking among the peer group.

Smoking is much more common among teens living in less advantaged circumstances. Teens in households at the lowest level of income adequacy are nearly twice as likely to smoke (34%) as those at the highest level. Teens with an Aboriginal ethnic background are much more likely to smoke (39%) than teens born outside Canada or those with a South Asian or South East Asian background

Teenage smokers are a key part of the Sociable Experimenter population segment. This group tends to look at smoking as another lifestyle choice. While they show some awareness of the hazards of smoking, their combination of fatalism and sensation seeking makes health consequences a more remote consideration at this stage of their life.

The onset of smoking among teens is typically around age 13. The first experience usually takes place with a friend or among a group, reflecting a process involving both peer pressure and curiosity. Teens downplay the importance of peer pressure and imitation of adults, older teens or media characters and personalities, but their discussion of their initiation into the smoking subculture highlights the centrality of adult role models and the desire for status and approval in their peer groups. Once the habit is established, teens find other rationalizations, such as tension relief, boredom or acceptance of the physiological craving induced by daily usage.

Obtaining cigarettes is unproblematic for teens even at early ages. Cigarettes for initial trials are readily available by raiding the stocks of adult smokers in their household or from older friends or siblings. Teens need only exercise a little ingenuity to find a compliant retailer. Prohibitions against selling tobacco to minors are not rigorously enforced and are flagrantly violated by many merchants. The cost of smoking is not initially a problem to most teens, who substitute smoking for school lunches and discretionary purchases out of allowances or income from odd jobs and chores. Peer groups also share cigarettes or chip in to purchase a pack.

As time goes on, however, older teenagers recognize that regular smoking represents a significant expense that eats into their discretionary budget. Teenagers do not see higher cigarette prices as much of a deterrent since cigarettes are already recognized as a necessity. Conversely, lower cigarette prices are widely acknowledged as an opportunity to smoke more.

Teens find few problems with smoking, after the initial side effects of getting started. While teenage smokers are reasonably informed about the health risks of smoking, the long range effects raise few concerns because the final reckoning seems far away. More immediate effects, such as the loss of lung capacity, impact only on teens who are active in sports.

Qualitative research results point to a high degree of ambivalence about smoking among teens. While teens acknowledge the pleasures of smoking, they recognize it as a self destructive behavior. For some, this represents one of its attractions - a way to tempt fate or engage in an antisocial behavior that represents a break with childhood.

Despite their own acceptance of the risks of smoking, teens are not so devoted to the habit that they see it as something they would want their own children or younger siblings to emulate. In an association exercise using bands or automobiles to depict smokers versus nonsmokers, the nonsmokers emerged with more positive images than smokers, particularly when the frame of reference was adult smokers. When the reference was teenage smokers, however, the image of a nonsmoker was less favourable than a smoker - smoking teens were seen as more hip or sophisticated. Smoking thus has a different social meaning depending on whether the referent is adults or teens.

In line with this finding, most teen smokers claimed that they did not expect to still be smoking when they were 30 or 40 years old. Smoking is perceived as okay for young people, but unacceptable for mature adults with family responsibilities who have an obligation to serve as a positive role model.

Teens have an intellectual appreciation of the health risks involved with smoking, but there is little emotional identification with the risks because the consequences are associated with older people. Teenagers tend to minimize the risk of their current smoking on the grounds that they have lots of time before they have to worry about any health consequences.

Partly because they have assimilated the dangers of smoking, teens are comfortable with the idea of smoking reduction policies, subject to a few exceptions. They find laws prohibiting the sale of tobacco products to minors to be hypocritical or discriminatory, since it is not illegal for teens to possess cigarettes or smoke. Similarly, they find proposals to ban smoking in clubs or bars to be unrealistic since smoking is part of the lifestyle in these venues.

Other control measures receive wide acceptance. Most teens accept the idea that the non-smoking majority has the right to a smoke free workplace. Teens were especially concerned about protecting infants and young children from cigarette smoke. In their own lives, however, their own exposure to secondhand smoke does not appear to be a large concern.

Teens have few illusions about tobacco company event sponsorship; they tend to see these activities as just one more adjunct to other marketing activities. While teens deny being influenced by tobacco advertising, there is strong evidence that brand identities have been established and preferences established among smoking teens.

Above all, teen smokers like to think of themselves as adults who have made a lifestyle choice. There was little evidence of any anti-smoking message that had made a significant impact on teens. As a group, teens have learned to find their way through a barrage of advertising messages targeted specifically at them. The more intensively a message is communicated, the more likely teens are to develop their own response or counter interpretation.

Quitting smoking is an emergent concern among teens. The prevalence results show that there is already an appreciable number of teens who have tried to quit in the age category. However, given the high prevalence of smoking among their age group peers and the low percentage of former smokers, this group may have a more difficult time sticking with their decision than older adults.

For other teens who are still smoking, the prospect of quitting remains far away on the horizon. There is nonetheless an expectation that they will quit some day, especially by the time that they become parents. For the short term, they have few motivations to quit, especially if everyone in their peer group is still smoking. Teenage females also express concern about gaining weight if they try to stop smoking.

Survey data and qualitative research demonstrate that smoking is a serious health problem among teenagers. Prevalence rates among young adults (19-24 years of age) are the highest of any population group. While previous age cohorts have given up smoking as they age, there is no assurance that this pattern will continue with current adolescent age cohorts. A non-smoking lifestyle is perceived as ultimately preferable, but the rebellious posture associated with smoking exerts a strong appeal, especially among more marginal youth who see a bleak future ahead. Prevention efforts need to target preteens, insofar as the smoking initiation process begins at an early stage of adolescence or before. More consistent enforcement of prohibitions against tobacco sales to minors would also heighten the impact of any prevention program.