Table 3.

Key points

• Smoking usually starts as a symbolic act of rebellion or maturity

• By age 20, 80% of smokers regret having started to smoke

• Nicotine from cigarettes is highly addictive—probably because it is delivered so rapidly to the brain

• Smoking a cigarette, especially the first of the day, feels good mainly because it reverses the symptoms of nicotine withdrawal

• Most smokers who switch to low tar cigarettes or reduce the number of cigarettes they smoke continue to inhale the same amount of nicotine, and hence tar, from the cigarettes they smoke

• Heavy dependence on nicotine is strongly related to socioeconomic disadvantage

• Smoking is a chronic relapsing addictive disease