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How to get 7th graders to smoke

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Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#41
post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

It was nice of them to teach kids how to identify real marijuana.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#42
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can spend orders of magnitude less, or about the same depending on how they do it. Mixing your own fluid is stupidly cheap - a weeks spending for a pack-a-day smoker will cover at least a year of vaping like that. If they build their own coils, it's also very cheap - nearly a life's supply of wire can be had for one or two packs. On the other hand, if you buy disposable vapes or cartridges, you can easily spend…

So it sounds like the real money is in the hardware rather than the consumable juice?

The juice is heavily price-gouged and not exactly cheap if you buy it pre-mixed, but yes, hardware is expensive and the replacement coils for refillable-but-not-rebuildable systems aren't cheap either. It can be cheaper than cigarettes, but there's a good chance it won't be significantly so if you aren't buying in bulk and are replacing your coils often. Disposables vapes and cartridge systems are so addictive and easy to use anywhere that they are more expensive than cigarettes in my experience.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vapers spend a lot less. As a pack-a-day smoker I was spending $7-10 a day on cigarettes. Before I quit altogether, I was spending $20-30 a month on nicotine salts, $20 a month on cartridges, and $100 once a year or two for mods and batteries. Since I was working from home I was vaping constantly, so I didn’t reduce nicotine consumption despite the cost reduction. I could buy a brand new mod every month and it’d stil…

So nicotine salts are synthetic right? Is there a reason people consume them via oral pouches, does a pill simply not work? Or is the addiction tied to both the method of consumption and not only the effect (why i drink coffee and not take caffeine pills i guess)

Yes they’re synthetic. Pills take much longer than pouches since they have to go through the digestive system, whereas pouches steadily release nicotine that is absorbed quickly by the gums.

Method of consumption is definitely important. I couldn’t fully switch to vapes until I found one that had the same “throat feel” as my American Spirits. Not just the type of nicotine (salts) but the exact brand of vaporizer and coil style. Just like people prefer the taste and ritual of coffee to caffeine pills.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#44
If you see footnote 1: "In a later paper where the researchers caught up with these same students again, the difference between the Social and Emotional programs had mysteriously disappeared."

It almost seems as if the researchers triggered something resembling the Streisand effect. The Social and Emotional programs were obviously intended to discourage the kids from smoking, but participation in those programs was only serving to keep the kids' attention on smoking, and making some of them curious.

The kids might also have gotten the message that trying smoking is okay, as long as it's not related to peer pressure or feelings, but one's inherent curiosity. Programs designed to produce resilience against peer pressure will not block smoking that is not caused by peer pressure.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#45
post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

I did not get the briefcase in my DARE education. What I did get is a cop telling me that my parents having a glass of wine with dinner or a cigarette after work was just as bad a them using cocaine, and that you could OD and die on weed. All drugs are equally bad.

A few years later when my friends were smoking weed and laughed at my concerns, and I realized I’d been lied to, I pretty much did everything under the sun.

An actual education would have let me make better choices about my recreational drug use as a young person.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#46
post #40

At the core of the problem is that social services that address the physical consequences of smoking (mostly medical professionals and financial counselors) are run by people who believe that everyone ought to be treated similarly and have similar opportunities, regardless of behavior. Smoking is considered "a problem" to society because intelligent, caring people that notice that smoking injuries and medical conditi…

> “ So really, what's going on is that well-intentioned meddlers are trying to meddle in the lives of people who don't share the utopian, collaborative values of the meddlers. Predictably, this doesn't work.”

It actually did work incredibly well (at least in the US). Smoking went from something the majority of the American population did that was present in almost all private and public spaces to something only a small minority does in a small number of places.

Whether or not you agree with the methods, I think it is necessary to recognize that the methods worked.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#48
post #12
post #5

Show them a Quentin Tarantino film? ...or any film for that matter where the main characters seem so "cool, unfazed and untouchable". To a young (mostly male) mind, that's the ultimate goal; to be in charge. For most beginning smokers, it's not about the inhalation of tobacco, but the subversive "screw the rules, those don't apply to me" façade. This might sound obvious but, if we want 7th graders not to glorify smok…

This has been tried before. In Waterworld, the bad guys are literally called the "Smokers" and smoking is a big part of their culture. It's so over the top it seems more like a parody of anti-smoking campaigns. I doubt it ever convinced anybody not to smoke, and I think any similar attempt is doomed to fail in the same way. Kids are good at detecting when you're trying to manipulate them, and it doesn't matter if you…

I thought it referred to the smoke from their engines? They were the only ones in that world who used internal combustion engines?

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#49
post #27
post #22

This brought back memories of the D.A.R.E. officer coming to my elementary classroom to give us the "don't do drugs" speech. At the end of the speech with feigning hesitation he'd pull out the drug briefcase to the cheers of the kids, like a band holding out their best song for the encore. "This here is methamphetamine, aka crystal meth or speed. If you see a man running down the street with the strength of a bear, t…

I never attended a DARE class, but in the early 90s the t-shirts were everywhere so my memory of it was people wearing the shirts "ironically".

In Brazil, in the 90's there was a campaign called "Drogas nem morto" (drugs not even dead). I heard about a guy who used a t-shirt of the campaign to sell drugs.

Re: How to get 7th graders to smoke

#50
The fundamental problem is that drugs are fun and the bad effects are offset by years or even decades.

Also the fact that vast majority of people who do drugs never realize the bad effects from it. They do it in moderation, use them responsibly, and stop without much thought. It's the hockey stick at the edge of the chart where all the destructive narrative comes from.

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