Teen smokers and risk of alcohol problem

Teenagers who smoke may be more likely than their peers to become problem drinkers. For some people, a drink and a smoke seem to naturally go together. But it's been unclear whether one substance can actually encourage dependence on the other. Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, USA, conducted a survey of nearly 75,000 children and adolescents between12 and 20 years old. They found that smokers were 4.5 times more likely to report signs of alcohol abuse or dependence. The risk was particularly pronounced among the youngest smokers - even with other factors, like race and family income, taken into account.The higher rate of alcohol problems was not explained by the fact that smokers simply drank more in general. The results shows is that if you compare smokers and non-smokers who drink the same amount, the smokers have substantially more problems with alcohol than the non-smokers do. One possibility is that there's a common genetic predisposition that makes some people vulnerable to both alcohol dependence and habitual smoking. Another explanation, particularly in teenagers, is that people tend to pick up certain combinations of habits - like smoking and drinking - from their social environment. But it's also possible that smoking directly influences vulnerability to alcohol problems. Animal studies have found that nicotine may affect the still-developing adolescent nervous system in a way that boosts susceptibility to addiction, though it's still unclear if this applies to humans as well. The above findings are consistent with what animal research shows regarding the effects of nicotine on the brain. If that research holds true for humans, it would offer a powerful message to teenagers about the dangers of smoking.