Prevalence of narcotic analgesic abuse among students: individual or polydrug abuse?

C hildren are exposed to smoking scenes usually depicted positively in the media, like TV programs and films, 1 which may encourage adolescents to initiate a smoking habit. 2 We should also consider their earlier exposure; we recently recognized that well-known classic picture books, repeatedly read to children , depict smoking. Nevertheless, how often these scenes appear in children's books is unknown. We examined such depictions in popular classic picture books in comparison with contemporary books. We selected book titles from the bestseller guide at Amazon.com, The New York Times Parent's Guide to the Best Books for Children, third edition. Our selection was not based on sales or random sampling from a library because parents often buy and borrow books with the help of critics' recommendations, not randomly. From the 3 categories for younger children in the guide, " Word-less Books, " with 16 titles; " Picture Books, " with 254 titles; and " Story Books, " with 314 titles, we selected all of the 44 classic books published before 1960. For contemporary books, 20 were randomly selected from 179 titles published in 1980 through 1989 and 20 from 249 published in 1990 through 1999 for a total of 40. We selected only the first volume for a series. One author (S.N.) and a research assistant independently assessed illustrated pages, identified smoking scenes, and classified the traits of smoking characters and type of tobacco products. Disagreements were decided in discussions with another author (M.I.). There was 99.3% agreement on smoking scenes and 90.9% on the character traits. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were calculated. important; 2 were women. Pipes were smoked by 24 smokers, cigarettes by 12, and cigars by 7. Depiction of smoking in picture books might have reflected societal changes. Research and public awareness of the adverse health effects of smoking began in the 1960s. Consequently, contemporary society has an antismoking attitude and the smoking rate has declined in most industrialized countries. 3 The predominance of male smokers in children's books may be sex stereotyping, reflecting the higher smoking prevalence among adult men. Pipe smoking, the most common type in picture books, may stereotype male characters as older and wise. A study in the United States showed that in the 1960s pipe smokers tended to be older white men with a higher education, which is not true today. 4 The effect of these scenes exceeds the scope …