Smoking in Vennesla

This examination takes starting point in pupils who go on VK1 at Vennesla Videregående Skole. We look at the total smokinghabits, but also separates between vocational and general/economical subjects. We will also see if we find some connection between parents and the youths smokinghabits

Statistics

Eroykere.jpg (14761 bytes) In the starting point we had no determined meaning of the percentage of smokers at the school. We made a question-examination that we have used to all statistics, and this showed that 63% was not smoking at all. 17% is party-smokers, and the rest, 20 percent, consists of smokers, some more serious than others. The diagram shows the number of cigarettes per day.

We decided to compare this with the country average, and we found that 32 per cent of all males and females in Norway smokes daily. This is similar with the results we have. We notice that the percent share on the country basis for all adults were the same for males and females, we don’t believe it will be like this in our school.

Difference between boys and girls

Eboygirl.jpg (21020 bytes) We quickly confirmed our theory that more girls than boys did smoke at this school. The number of party-smokers is almost equal, but when it comes to more serious smoking the girls outnumber the boys. 75% of the boys doesn’t smoke at all, only 35% of the girls can say the same.

We assume that the reason that this separates from the Norwegian average is that the younger generation has other smoking habits than the elder.

Also in this diagram we measure the number of cigarettes per day, now both for boys and girls.

Influence by parents

Eparents.jpg (25432 bytes) The group thought that kids of smokers have a bigger chance to start smoking themselves. We can now see in the diagram that we were right. With "Parents smoke" we mean a set of parents where one or two of them smoke.

Both groups is at about the same level when it comes to party-smoking. Beyond this, we see that the parents have a great influence.

This comes clear when we look at the pillars for non-smokers. Only 55% of young people with a smoking parent don’t smoke, while the corresponding percentage for kids with non-smoking parents is over 70%.

Difference between college -and vocational training students

Originally, we had no certain meaning if there would be any differences here. We knew that we had questioned more girls that boys on the vocational training courses, and because of that we imagined that the percentage of smokers would be a bit higher here.

The result was as expected. While 70 percent of the college students were smoke-free, the same number with the vocational training students was only 50%. There were also differences between the smokers. The smokers at college courses mostly were party-smokers (17%) or smoked less than 5 cigarettes a day (8%). 21% of the vocational training students smokes 10 cigarettes or more per day, only 2% does this in college programs.

Even if there is more girls in the vocational training programs that we have been questioning, there still are differences. We can only speculate why this is so.

Interview with a smoker

A cup of coffee with "Per"

It’s a dark and cloudy Wednesday morning in the beginning of February. All the snow has melted away, the white carpet of winter has disappeared, but it doesn’t seem like this creature across the table for me cares at all. I’ve invited my good friend, lets call him "Per", for a little conversation over a cup of coffee. After a few minutes of chatting over last weekend’s events, the time has come to cut to the case. "Per…..," I ask with a calm but firm tone. " Do you smoke?"

mangle2.jpg (28414 bytes) "Per" looks empty into my eyes, then stares out of the window for a couple of seconds, before he looks down and begins his story: " I was so young, so damn young. Already as an immature fourteen-year-old boy I smoked my first cigarette. I didn’t know what this would lead to. Today I smoke more than a 20-pack a day," Per says while grasping for air. I can clearly see some of the effects Nicotine has had on this otherwise healthy soul. "Why on earth did you have this first cigarette?" I ask him. "Per" calmly place his cup on the table, leans backwards, and continues his story. "I don’t know, it just came out that way. Cigarettes were not hard to get. Even as a fourteen-year-old I had no problem buying cigarettes on my own, and today I often buy them for minors. I wish I never had that first cigarette, today I a lot of money on cigarettes, and my stamina is lousy because of all the smoking. It’s so fucking expensive with cigarettes here in Norway!! I’ve tried to quit smoking two or three times, but I’m too week. After one week I smoke even more. Most of my friends smoke, I think it would a lot easier to quit smoking if my friends tried to do the same. Well, I really don’t care, I’m sure I’m not gonna get cancer, stuff like that never happens to me……

His voice becomes more quiet, he almost whispers at this time, I got the feeling I doesn’t wanna talk about smoking, and all the bad things it can lead to. I says I doesn’t care, but I can read the truth in his eyes. Per changes the subject of the conversation, he tries to be funny……"It’s a good thing to be bi-sexual, twice as many potential spouses……"

We lift again our cups and have another sip of coffee. The interview is over. I got the answers I expected, the life of a smoker is not as careless as it seems.