In the advanced questionnaire teens who have never used tobacco were asked, without prompting, their main reasons for having never started to smoke or use tobacco. These results are based on 93 teen respondents. The major reasons cited are: health concerns (46%), bad habit (32%), lack of interest (32%) and not liking the taste or smell (28%). Teen never users are more likely than all never users to state they did not start because of health concerns and being a bad habit. They are also more likely to mention involvement in physical activities as a reason for not starting.

A number of different techniques were used in the focus groups to get at reasons for not smoking. These included an exercise surrounding the worst thing(s) about smoking, a more in-depth discussion on reasons for not smoking and finding out what teen smokers would say to a friend or relative if they were thinking of starting to smoke.

Several themes also emerged as the worst things about smoking. Each theme is presented in descending order of frequency of mentions. For the most part, responses were consistent by gender.

Physical effects - The most commonly mentioned worst aspect of smoking is the detrimental effects to one’s body or health. These ranged from minor effects ¾ dependence, smelly breath, yellow teeth, wrinkles, dark circles under eyes ¾ to very serious effects ¾ lung cancer, shortening of life span, death.

Limitations on physical activity - A decreased performance level in sports activities was recognized as one of the downsides of smoking cigarettes. This included being short of breath, not being able to go as fast or far, killing your endurance, and getting tired more easily. Interestingly, this came up more often among the female teens than the male teens. Male teens recognized this as an effect but didn’t feel it had affected them to a large degree and that they were still able to perform adequately.

Babies and secondhand smoke - A few of the male and female teens said they would not want their babies exposed to smoke and therefore wouldn’t smoke around their kid(s)

Expense of smoking - A few teens stated that the cost of smoking was the worst thing about it. Especially when they considered the annual cost of smoking and how that money could be used otherwise.

Social pressures - One teen mentioned a fear of being a teased or harassed if she stopped smoking.

Weight gain - One female teen commented that the worst thing about smoking was gaining weight whenever you try to quit. As will be discussed later, this was a widely held, although not ubiquitous, attitude among female teens.

Twelve to 15 year old participants were given a thought bubble exercise to summarize the advice they would give a friend or relative that was thinking of starting smoking. Roughly equal numbers of participants told the friend or relative that they should not start because of the health risks and the expense as those that told them it was their decision to make but also made them aware of the disadvantages of smoking. A handful adamantly opposed the idea of the friend or relative starting smoking by providing personal threats if they did start. Most participants mentioned adverse health effects as the main reason for not smoking but some also mentioned the expense, the smell on clothes and hair, and fingers turning yellow. The latter two reasons were only mentioned by females.