Response to 'Smoking and Gender' blog

http://kalendaviesblog.blogspot.com/. I agree that the high proportion of young girls who smoke would seem to indicate a degree of emotional dependence. The fact that your friend indicated that smoking helped to 'calm her down', is surpising, however, as cigarettes are actually stimulants. Perhaps it acts in the same way as small doses of the stimulant ritalin which actually fine-tunes the prefrontal cortex (PFC) region of the brain involved in decision making, attention and impulse control. Only at higher doses does it create the effects associated with stimulants: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080624115956.htm