Mike A. Males

About the author: Mike A. Males serves on the California Wellness Foundation Adolescent Health Advisory Board, and he has written extensively on youth and social issues for the New York Times, the Lancet, Phi Delta Kappan, In These Times, and Scribner's Encyclopedia of Violence in America.

Antismoking groups' decision to focus only on preventing teenage smoking overlooks the problem that the large number of adult smokers make smoking seem socially acceptable to teens. Since smoking is more a conformist act than a rebellious one, antismoking groups and the tobacco industry make smoking more alluring through their "everybody does it" messages. Treating tobacco as a gateway drug (a substance that will cause teens to try other, harder drugs) is also doing more harm than good in the war against teen...