Early Start Makes Addiction Hard to Kick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) The younger children are when they first start
experimenting with smoking, drugs or drinking, the harder it is for them to
quit, researchers said on Tuesday.

They said the riskiest time for kids was around age 12, and if they started
that young, they were unlikely to kick bad habits.

David DeWit and colleagues at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
studied the drug histories of 4,300 children and adolescents in the area.

They said some children took their first drink as young as 10, started drugs
at 11 and went to hard drugs such as cocaine and crack by age of 15 and 16.

The experimental phase ends by age 22, they found.

"Our data revealed that age at onset of drug use was a strong correlate of
young people's propensity to quit their drug habit," they wrote in the
December issue of Health Education and Behavior.

They said drugabuse programs should start with younger children.