Fox News ran a stark warning this week that cigarette smoking is climbing again among America’s teenagers, a report segment that featured Dr. Marc Siegel sounding the alarm and urging a return to common-sense values. The piece aired on November 27, 2025, and drove home a simple point: we cannot afford to be complacent about kids picking up a deadly habit.
Before anyone starts parroting the usual public-health platitudes, the hard data show the picture is complicated — the CDC’s 2024 National Youth Tobacco Survey still registers historically low cigarette use overall, but it also reveals worrying upticks in combustible tobacco among some groups and a steady presence of novel nicotine products. That means the national average can hide dangerous pockets where kids are being seduced back into smoking or into other high-nicotine products that prime them for cigarettes.
Don’t let the left’s data-sleight-of-hand excuse inaction: one group’s decline is not a reason to relax enforcement, and one subgroup’s rise is not a niche problem — it is a failure of culture, enforcement, and family authority. For patriots who actually care about protecting children, the right response is simple: enforce the law, shut down illegal sales, and stop pretending that social media influencers glamorizing smoking are harmless. Recent reporting has pointed out how pop culture and influencer trends can make smoking look cool again to impressionable young people.
Dr. Marc Siegel used the interview to do more than diagnose a health trend; he tied the sickness of youth nicotine uptake to a broader emptiness that faith and community once helped fill, themes he expands in his new book. His argument is conservative common sense — medicine alone won’t fix a moral and social problem, and communities of faith, strong families, and honest mentorship are part of prevention. That is exactly the kind of real-world remedy Americans should be demanding from leaders at every level.
Washington’s one-size-fits-all public health crusades have not stopped Big Nicotine and the black market from finding clever ways to reach kids — flavored products, discreet pouches, and slick online marketing all skirt the rules while politicians posture. Instead of virtue-signaling bans that drive business underground, conservative policy must focus on vigorous enforcement of age limits, accountability for retailers, and targeted community programs that teach kids self-respect and long-term thinking. The battle to keep teens smoke-free will be won in neighborhoods and churches, not in endless federal hearings.
Parents and local leaders cannot outsource the raising of children to schools and regulators and then be surprised when youth pick up dangerous habits. It’s time for fathers and mothers to reclaim authority, for school boards to restore discipline and common-sense health education, and for conservatives in office to fund faith-based and family-centered prevention programs. Those are the practical, proven steps that protect liberty and life at the same time.
This is not a partisan scrap — it’s a call to do our duty to the next generation. If we want free, prosperous communities, we must refuse to tolerate the slow surrender of our children to nicotine addiction and cultural decay; we must act with urgency, common sense, and the courage of our convictions.
