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of waking is a meaningful measure of addiction^'. 



I am struck especially by the statistics about our young 

 people. A majority of adult smokers begin smoking as 

 teenagers". Unfortunately, 70 percent of young people ages 12- 

 18 who smoke say that they believe that they are already 

 dependent on cigarettes". About 40 percent of high school 

 seniors who smoke regularly have tried to quit and failed". 



It is fair to argue that the decision to start smoking may 

 be a matter of choice. But once they have started smoking 

 regularly, most smokers are in effect deprived of the choice to 

 stop smoking. Reicall one of the statistics I recited earlier. 

 Seventeen million Americans try to quit smoking each year. But 

 more than 15,000,000 individuals are unable to exercise that 

 choice because they cannot break their addiction to cigarettes. 

 My concern is that the choice that they are making at a young age 

 quickly becomes little or no choice at all and will be very 

 difficult to undo for the rest of their lives. 



Mr. Chairman, nicotine is recognized as an addictive 

 substance by such major medical organizations as the Office of 

 U.S. Surgeon General, the World Health Organization^'', the 

 American Medical Association^^ the American Psychiatric 

 Association", the American Psychological Association^", the 

 American Society of Addiction Medicine^^, and the Medical 

 Research Council in the United Kingdom". All of these 

 organizations acknowledge tobacco use as a form of drug 

 dependence or addiction with severe adverse health consequences. 



