Here I was wondering what I would regale you all with when msn.com provided me the answer. As evidenced by this article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21440637/wid/11915773?GT1=10514 teen smokers are five times more likely to drink and thirteen times more likely to use marijuana. My favorite thing, my very, most favorite thing about said article, is that it’s news.

The single best line is: “Asked whether smoking is causing these other behaviors or is just another risky behavior occurring alongside the others, Califano said, ‘There's no question that early teenage smoking is linked to these other things. Now whether it's causing it or not, I think the jury is probably still out on that.’”

I love that we think smoking cigarettes, like some sort of vengeful curse, takes control of your mental facilities, rips destiny from your young, nubile, little fingers, and replaces it with a beer and a joint. Once you start down that dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny. Consume you it will! As it did Obi-Won’s apprentice.

Do psychologists not factor into the academics looking at this data? Does psychology 101 have no influence on these scientists education? Does basic common sense play no part in our examination? Here’s a hypothesis, one I’m just throwing out there for the fun of it. Teenagers are unhappy. Teenagers are looking for a way to rebel and escape reality. Those that want it bad enough find cigarettes. Those that continue to want it bad enough find beer and pot, and perhaps, other drugs. The cigarettes might affect their growing brain and make dependence more likely, but the reason they try these drugs and drink is because they hate their life. A hate brought on mostly by being a teenager; perhaps compounded by parents, school, and society. A hate that exists with or without the cigarettes.

It’s just a thought.

I would guess, those willing to break the rules and try cigarettes are probably the same that will be willing to break the rules and drink underage. The common factor there is breaking the rules. Amazing, isn’t it? And yet we spend money, valuable time that we could be researching failures of education, failures of the prison system, hell, even failures of the government, and instead try to prove (because it hasn’t been proven yet) that cigarettes are a bad idea. And, to top it all off, that kids who make bad decisions early on, are more likely to make bad decisions later. That’s absolutely fucking brilliant. I’m so glad I’m a member of academia.

This article serves no purpose but to give people something to worry about. It allows parents to have one more reason to fear their children smoking. A more concrete reason than it being unhealthy. Health is some thing we don’t have to think about often. It’s in the future. And if the parent used to smoke they might not worry about their child experimenting. But if the parent is appropriately afraid of their child turning into a pothead or a heroin addict, they’ll react much more violently.

A parent reacting violently to cigarettes in their teens bag is not a bad thing--I’m not sure what I would do, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be pretty. But, again, basic parenting skills along with current education inform you that you shouldn’t let your children smoke. They also inform you that children find other substances to affect reality not because the substances have some sort of evil aura that forces them to, but because they don’t like their reality. The way to combat usage then is not to simply take the substances away (the child will most likely find a substitute) but to take the substances away and try and fix the situation as much as possible.

But the article doesn’t tell you that. It warns you to be afraid, be very afraid, if your child smokes. A lot of articles now a days warn you to be afraid, be very afraid, of so many things. If you are afraid and vigilant than you can stop it. You can control it. You can be so happy that other people are afraid that you will thank them when they alleviate you of some of your control to help lessen the burden. Thank you sir for taking away my right to smoke indoors. Thank you sir for taking away my right to drink. Thank you sir for taking away my right to privacy. I’m so very glad that you don’t let others do these horrible things, so that I, and my children, can be safe.

It’s going to suck a lot when you, or your children, are perceived to be doing those things and everyone else just watches you all be taken away. Thankful that someone is helping to keep them safe.