Blacks' Tobacco Risk Revisited

African American youngsters who smoke

By shankar Vedantam

African American youngsters who smoke may not catch the attention of stop-smoking programs because the scales used to measure nicotine dependence do not take into account racial differences in how adolescents smoke and metabolize nicotine, new research suggests.

Black teenagers 'in general smoke less than their white counterparts, but a study published last week shows that what seems like good news masks the fact that these youngsters take longer to metabolize nicotine meaning that they are at grave risk of becoming quickly addicted, said Eric I Moolchan, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Teen Tobacco Addiction Treatment Research Clinic in Baltimore.

Because scales that are used to assess nicotine dependence are partially based on the numbers of cigarettes smoked, Moolchan said clinicians and researchers could be lulled into a false sense of security about the risks that tobacco smoking poses to black youngsters. The scientist's conclusion was based on a study he and other researchers publisshed last week in the journal Ethnicity and Disease which found that adolescent blacks me Moolchan, who added that the study would help guide efforts underway to reduce smoking among teenagers.

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