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Tobacco & Youth
Perhaps the epitome of peer pressure is a teenager being pressured by other teenagers to smoke or use some other tobacco product. Peer pressure can occur at any age but it by far is associated with youth more than any other class of people.
Peer pressure usually comes from friends or acquaintances. This picture is usually young people in school but occurs in other social settings and even church (I personally was pressured to use tobacco by other teenagers at church). A 2001 study by the National Center on Addiction & Substance Abuse showed that if young people had friends who used tobacco, they were ten times more likely to try tobacco then if they had friends who didn't smoke.
Peer pressure is one major reason why parents need to guard their children from the world as much as possible. Do everything you can to keep your children away from ungodly peer pressure. Three things that will take the heart of a young person is public school, television and music. All three of these things point to a young person experimenting with tobacco. If you put your teenager (now-a-days maybe even younger) in public school, let them watch whatever they want on television and/or listen to whatever music they want, don't be surprised when you bust them with tobacco.
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly..." (Ps. 1:1). There is nothing in this time that breathes the counsel of the ungodly like public school, filthy television and worldly music.
"I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers." (Ps. 26:4). "Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away." (Prov. 4:14,15). "I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation." (Jer. 15:17).
Believers are to have no dealings with the world. Why have churches (even IFB churches) gotten so worldly and spiritually dead? I actually answered that question in the question. "Worldly"-IFB churches have had a great lapse in separation. They embrace the world rather than being separated from the world. When my family was in-between our church planting ministry in Ontario, Canada and New York state, we actually left a "King James only Independent Fundamental Baptist church" because so many of its people were so worldly (especially the young people). They were tobacco users, loved Hollywood movies, listened to secular music and worshipped the idol, college football. And many of this church's youth were so into tobacco, pornography, and explicit music, we didn't even want our daughter around most of them.
"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." (Prov. 22:6). Parents must raise their children in godliness. If you don't put forth every effort in this time, be prepared to lose your children to the world and the devil.
Christian young people who are forced to go to public school and be around ungodly young people must make the most out of their relationship with God. They must have a strong prayer life and be a serious student of the Bible. They will be a light in darkness. "O send out thy light and thy truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles." (Ps. 43:3). "Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 5:14-16).
These Christian young people can be encouraged that God is able to deliver them from the temptation that peer pressure brings. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." (Matt. 26:41). "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." (James 1:12).
The giant tobacco firm, Philip Morris, surveyed students in 2002 for its Youth Smoking and Prevention Teenage Attitudes and Behavior Study. Eleven to seventeen-year-olds were questioned, "How many of your friends smoked?" Just about all the respondents said that all or most of their friends smoked and 44% were smokers themselves. The same survey revealed that 73% of the respondents were with friends when they tried their first cigarette and 64% of the time, those smokers received their first cigarette from a friend's pack.
Up to one million U.S. teenagers begin smoking each year. In 1999, The Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids estimated that there were more than 4.1 million smokers in the U.S.A. between the ages of twelve and seventeen. The results of research published in Scientific American added that one hundred thousand children under thirteen smoke.
The average smoker begins smoking at the age of fourteen and a half. The Campaign For Tobacco-Free Kids stated, "By the time America's youth are seniors in high school 36.9% of them are smoking. Dr. David Kessler, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration has called smoking "a pediatric disease." Many smokers are young and the vast array of smokers begin young. Dr. Kessler adds, "A person who hasn't started smoking by the age of nineteen is unlikely to ever become a smoker."
As we wrote earlier, peer pressure is much more synonymous with youth than any other age group. Teens begin tobacco to look "grown up" and/or be accepted by other young people. Grown adults usually already h ve an established social circle and don't have to begin new habits (especially bad habits) to be accepted by anyone.
Once again, it isn't just cigarettes that young people are into now. In the late 1990s the CDC reported that one in four U.S. teenagers aged fourteen to nineteen smoked at least one cigar in the last year. Nearly 3% smoked fifty cigars in the previous year.
Today, nearly 20% of all high school boys, ninth to twelfth graders, use smokeless tobacco. In some western states the rate is as high as 40%. Nearly three-fourths of teen chewers and dippers say they began using tobacco in the ninth grade or earlier.
The Bible speaks of youthful desires. "Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart." (2 Tim. 2:22). We should flee youthful lusts and follow righteousness with a pure heart. "As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy." (1 Pet. 1:14-16). "Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness’ sake, O LORD." (Ps. 25:7). "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." (Ps. 119:9). A young person gets victory over fleshly desires by applying themself to the word of God.
Another common trait among teen tobacco users is low self-esteem. Young people take up tobacco to look more mature and self-assured. Often, these feelings of low self-esteem are the result of a bad living situation. Many youth tobacco users come from dysfuntional homes in lower economic neighborhoods. 70% of all high school dropouts smoke.