Youth Coalition Against Smoking

It's nicotine that causes people to become addicted to cigarettes. Tobacco contains significant amounts of nicotine.

Nicotine generates a feeling of pleasure, relaxation and reward, artificially replacing the sensations that your body can generate on its own.

When you inhale tobacco smoke, it takes less than 10 seconds for the nicotine to reach your brain. Inhalation is the quickest way of "injecting" a drug into the brain - quicker than an intravenous injection!

If you smoke a cigarette, cigar, cigarillo or joints, it becomes a kind of oral syringe!

In their internal documents, the tobacco Industry compares cigarettes to a "drug delivery mechanism". If so, Big Tobacco makes and sells drugs…? And what do we commonly call drug makers and sellers?...

During adolescence, the brain is still under construction, meaning that people are more likely to develop an addiction during adolescence than in any other period of their lives. It's for this reason that the tobacco companies target teens, because they're more vulnerable.

Some teens become addicted to cigarettes even though they've only smoked a few. Others show signs of addiction after their very first cigarette!

A lot of teens who are occasional smokers think they won't become addicted. And some who are daily smokers believe they're not really addicted to cigarettes. They're wrong ! take the test yourself, or ask your friends to take it! (Test)

Roughly 80% of young smokers believe they'll easily be able to quit. And yet, most are still smoking five years after trying to quit.

Tobacco addiction is both physical and psychological. This is why it's as powerful as an addiction to heroin or cocaine.