Why do people smoke? According to the CDC, 14 of 100 adults in the United States currently smoke. Every day people pick up some sort of smoking habit, but where do they learn to smoke?
Parents play a part in whether kids do end up either smoking or vaping. Parents are the role models of a child’s life, so if they see their parents doing something daily, they are going to probably think that it is good.
However, even if parents do not smoke and warn their kids about the dangers of both tobacco and vaping, students friends at school and at home can also cause them to start to smoke and or vape. Also, history shows that smoking has been a part of many cultures for hundreds of years so in many cases would be difficult to accurately gauge how far back addictions can go.
“I admit I have an addiction,” Andrew Caraneo, a sophomore, said. “But I’m not as addicted to cigarettes as I am too coffee.” Caraneo said that what has lead him to smoking was not only the people he knew smoked, but his parents smoked as well.
However, Caraneo knows that smoking is a bad habit and he would rather have a cup of coffee instead. Caraneo also said that in the future he does not want his kids to smoke but that is their choice to make.
“Everyone around me was vaping so I thought I should try it.” David Tilton, a freshman, said. Tilton spent two years of his life vaping but gave it up because of all the dangers vaping can do to a person’s body.
Tilton said that while his parents do not smoke or vape, that if they did it would have also encouraged him to smoke as well because they are the people Tilton looks up to the most. However, Tilton said that he did not want his kids to smoke or vape because of the danger they pose.
“I was surrounded by a smoking environment. My dad never smoked in the house but in the car rides there was always the smell of cigarettes,” Leo Godefroy, a junior, said.
Godefroy said that he does vape but before that he chewed tobacco. When a new supposedly safer and better-tasting product came out, he figured he would try it. Although Godefroy’s father was a smoker, he was against Leo smoking until he was 21 because his father didn’t think he should start a habit like that and just like his father, Godefroy does not want his kids to smoke or vape at all either.