Why do we start smoking

Experimenting with smoking usually occurs in the early teenage years and is driven predominantly by psychosocial motives. For a beginner, smoking a cigarette is a symbolic act conveying messages such as, in the words of the tobacco company Philip Morris, “I am no longer my mother's child,” and “I am tough.” Children who are attracted to this adolescent assertion of perceived adulthood or rebelliousness tend to come from backgrounds that favour smoking (for example, with high levels of smoking in parents, siblings, and peers; relatively deprived neighbourhoods; schools where smoking is common). They also tend not to be succeeding according to their own or society's terms (for example, they have low self esteem, have impaired psychological wellbeing, are overweight, or are poor achievers at school). The desired image is sufficient for the novice smoker to tolerate the aversion of the first few cigarettes, after which pharmacological factors assume much greater importance. Again in the words of Philip Morris, “as the force from the psychosocial symbolism subsides, the pharmacological effect takes over to sustain the habit.” Within a year or so of starting to smoke, children inhale the same amount of nicotine per cigarette as adults, experience craving for cigarettes when they cannot smoke, make attempts to quit, and report experiencing the whole range of nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC324461/