Peer Pressure
While there are certainly other influences that can lead a smoker into the habit, peer pressure is one of the biggest. A large part of the reason peer pressure comes under scrutiny is that one of the groups most likely to begin smoking -- young teenagers -- is also one of the most susceptible to peer pressure.

Social Reward
This reason for smoking is tied to peer pressure, although it's a little more complex and has the potential to affect more than just peer-pressure-sensitive tweens and teens. In short, social rewards are the "gifts" people feel they receive when participating in a group activity. Most often, this means some form of acceptance: Smokers at an office building who take cigarette breaks at similar times may bond while they smoke.

Risk Taking Behaviour
Adults in countries where smoking is frowned upon are familiar with the no-smoking signs, designated smoking areas and general restrictions on their ability to smoke when and where they wish. But these rules -- legal, physical and social -- can offer tempting lines to cross for young people who tend toward risk-taking behavior.

Parental influence
The relationship between parents smoking and their children smoking is blunt: Children of active smokers are more likely to start smoking than children of nonsmokers, or children of parents who quit smoking. According to some studies, a parent's choice to smoke can more than double the odds that the child will smoke

Misinformation
Tobacco, in some cases, is promoted as a source for increased health and vitality. Likewise, tobacco's supposed boost to virility is a long-running myth, supported in the U.S. by long-gone ads featuring masculine characters such as the Marlboro Man

Genetic Predisposition
A large section of the field of modern medical research focuses on genetics, and for good reason: From allergies to blood disorders and certain types of cancer, subtle mutations in a person's genes can mean the difference between sickness and health. Medical genetic research is beginning to suggest, too, that addictions -- including addiction to nicotine, the effective ingredient in tobacco products -- may have a genetic component

Advertising
Research has suggested that, worldwide, tobacco advertising plays a role in the number of people who start or stop smoking. This is not news for public health officials, who, in many nations, began fighting smoking-related illness by restricting tobacco advertising. A 1975 ban on tobacco advertising in Norway, for example, helped reduce long-term smoking prevalence in that nation by 9 percent

Self Medication
Smokers who are addicted to tobacco report a range of positive sensations that come from smoking a cigarette. These range from reduced tension or appetite to a heightened sense of well-being. Researchers trace these sensations back to the flood of chemicals released into the nervous system by nicotine. Just like any prescription or illicit drug, it changes the body's chemistry and functioning when it enters the system.

Media Influences
Like advertising, media can exert a significant influence on viewers' decision-making. One only has to look at how hairstyles or clothing fashions can be launched by a single movie or TV episode to see the extent of this power in many parts of the world.

Stress Relief
For people not suffering from severe mental illness, cigarettes may still become a form of self-medication. For decades, soldiers have taken up smoking on the battlefield to deal with wartime stress, for example. Many people experiencing much lower levels of stress -- in a high-pressure job, for example -- may start to smoke as a way to manage the tension and nerves associated with the situation.

k

E yaaa

are we talking just tobacco, or.........is weed included.

Cus last time i checked, smoking kwale weed was repoprted to provide a massive increase in brain function/activity

shockwave91:
are we talking just tobacco, or.........is weed included.

Cus last time i checked, smoking kwale weed was repoprted to provide a massive increase in brain function/activity

we talking of what inspires smoking not d effect

tcalc:
we talking of what inspires smoking not d effect

oh yeah got u there. Good points by the way

shockwave91:


oh yeah got u there. Good points by the way

yea........