Alcohol is up, cigarette is down

Teenagers started to drink more alcohol than smoking cigarettes. Alcohol use starts in young age. For example a recent survey showed that 32 percent of Oregon's eighth graders and 44 percent of 11th graders drank alcohol within the past month.

Cigarette and even marijuana smoking are down among Oregon middle and high school students, instead of that alcohol use remained the same for 11th graders but has increased 28 percent for eighth graders, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services Addictions and Mental Health Division.

According to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) researchers, one in five young adults age 18-25, 9 percent of youth age 12-17 and 7 percent of adults 26 or older abuse or are dependent on alcohol or other drugs, and many require treatment to kick the habit. More than 40 percent of children taken into protective care each year come from families with alcohol or drug abuse problems.

More Oregonians adults consume alcohol each month than any other addictive substance, according to DHS officials. Although 66 percent of men and 54 percent of women drink alcohol, far fewer report problem drinking. Surveys of adults indicate that 22 percent of men and 8 percent of women are binge drinkers, and approximately 6 percent of both sexes are heavy drinkers.

And each year there are more than 1,000 alcohol-related deaths in Oregon. According to the American Medical Association, young people who drink heavily, even occasionally, risk damaging their still-developing brains. Oregon has a goal of reducing eighth grade alcohol use to less than 17 percent by 2010, but no county has yet to reach this mark.

Despite the dramatic decline in cigarette use during the past 10 years, smoking continues to be the leading cause of preventable death in Oregon. Adult cigarette smoking rates vary by county, from a low of approximately 10 percent to a high of 30 percent. Males are more likely to use tobacco, which results in higher tobacco-linked death rates for men.

Even after this study, scientists continue to say that smoking is related to alcohol consumption, and reduction to alcohol intake may help the smokers to smoke less.

Scientists for the study think that people who want to quit smoking needs to abstain from drinking in order to experience the lesser effects of a withdrawal symptom. Limiting alcohol intake to one or two drinks per occasion will reduce the intensity of craving for smoke in smokers considerably.