Each morning and afternoon at South Kingstown High School, behind the back parking lot, a group of students congregate to smoke.

  Yet it is not just before and after school that student smoke outside. They also manage get out of class to smoke throughout the day, sometimes even smoking on school grounds during lunch period.

  Junior Rick Skuce, who smokes anywhere from half a pack to a pack of cigarettes a day, says he will ask to go to the nurse, and then head outside for a smoke. If he feels the need to smoke a second cigarette, he will simply change the time on his hall pass, go back to the clinic, and then go have another cigarette on his way back to class.

  Skuce started smoking at ten years old, and what started out as simply an oral fixation and a way to look cool, he said, became an addiction and a stress reliever.

  “You smoke more when you’re stressed, you just get that craving where you have to have a cigarette,” Skuce said.

  “If you need it and can’t have it, it stresses you out more,” agreed Kaitlyn Robinson, a junior at SKHS. Robinson said she has been so desperate for a cigarette that she’s smoked cigarette butts that she’s found on the ground.

  Robinson was well aware of the health risks involved in smoking when she began in seventh grade. However it wasn’t until she started to need an inhaler that she understood those risks.

  “It’s very hard to run for more than five minutes,” Robinson said, “When I go up the stairs it feels like my lungs are attached to my feet.”

  The addiction, however, has more sides than one would suspect. According to WebMD.com, a health website, teens who smoke are twice as likely to suffer from symptoms of depression as those who do not smoke.

  “There’s the oral fixation, the mental fixation, the hand fixation, but it’s got a lot to do with chemicals,” Robinson said.

  According to the American Lung Association, every day in America, 6,000 adolescents start smoking, and of those 2,000 will become regular smokers.

  In an article published by Reuters, smoking rates among teens peaked in 1999 at 36 percent, and then stabilizing by 2003 at 21.9 percent.

  The number of students who had ever tried a cigarette dropped from 70 percent in 1999 to 58 percent by 2003. Since then, smoking rates have dropped even further, and as of 2007, 50 percent of teens had ever smoked a cigarette.

  Smoking rates continue to decrease as students age according to “Big Tobacco On Campus,” a document published by lungusa.org. According to the organization in 2006, 19.2 percent of college students smoked, compared to 35.7 percent of young adults who are not in college full time that smoke. College smokers say they began smoking as a response to deal with stress and depression. In order to avoid being alone, students also start smoking as a social mechanism.  

  Also, according to the document student smokers are more likely to consume alcohol or use drugs while smoking.

  In the 2007-2008 SALT Survey done at South Kingstown High School, 31 students felt that there was no risk in smoking a pack or more of cigarettes a day, compared to 290 who believed that smoking at that rate was a great risk.

  There are, however, great risks involved with smoking. According to www.canstopsmoking.com, the addictive substance nicotine found in cigarettes, is a stimulant that makes the heart beat faster and blood pressure rise. In addition, the tar in cigarettes sticks to the lungs, which results in obstructed airways and destroys air sacs in the lungs.

  In a statement released by cardiology channel, one third of all cancers and 90 percent of lung cancer cases are related to smoking.  The younger a smoker starts, the greater their addiction will be, and the greater their risk of developing lung cancer.

  Rhode Island has taken action against smoking, banning smoking in the workplace, restaurants and bars, clubs and bowling alleys.  The ban was put into action as of March 1, 2005. States all around the country have taken action, different states placing restrictions on smoking in different places. The ban has been effective in New York City as well.

  In an article published by The New York Times on March of 2004, Andrea Elliot reported that air pollution levels in the city had decreased by six times what they were before the ban went into effect.

  “It’s a horrible addiction, I hate it,” said Robinson “It cuts back on fun. And the smell, you know, it’s just not a very nice smell.”