Pencil chewing high-risk cause of lung cancer

Case of coughing 2nd-grader kickstarts research.

Nowdays, not many people dare doubt that cigarette smoking can be harmful. A team of MDs and psychologists from London's UCL Hospital, though, claim that pencil chewing can have equally harmful effects, such as lung or throat cancer, if its subject's intention is to imitate smoking.

The research was launched following the incident of an 8-year-old student, fainting in class, after a violent cough attack. When asked, the boy admitted having chewn a pack of HB pencils, in the school toilets, during the break.

Researchers deem irrelevant the fact that the boy's parents are both heavy smokers, focusing instead on the brain's unconscious associations of the pencil with a cigarette and chewing it with smoking.

How can this even be possible, one may ask. Does graphite have toxic properties, after all? Moreover: does every pencil chewer experience health problems?

The unconscious brain associates pencils with cigarettes and chewing them with smoking.

Research team leader Dr. Garry McDermott, MD explains that it all comes down to autosuggestion. "The unconscious brain associates pencils with cigarettes and chewing them with smoking. Then, depending on each subject's belief system, autosuggestion gets triggered accordingly: to those who believe that cigarettes can be harmful, pencil chewing -as a substitute- seems to have the same effect. On the other hand, subjects coming from backgrounds where smoking has been neither glorified nor condemned seem to have no health problems caused by pencil chewing."

Why would anyone chew a pencil, though? According to the reaserch team's psychologists, there are two main reasons causing people to suck on their stationery:

1. to assist their mental process of the conscious (thinking) and
2. to make themselves look almost as cool as smokers.

According to the finds of the research, of the two categories, only the second is said to have tendencies towards health problems, like lung cancer. This is, of course, due to the subject's latent association with smoking, even if the subject is a non-smoker.

After years of antismoking campaigns, doctors find interesting that not only did cigarettes not lose their subliminal allure, but this allure has also transcended smoking itself, infiltrating other, previously concidered harmless activities.

"We forbid them to do it in class, but they can always do it in private, during the breaks."

Teachers worry, as peer pressure leads more and more students to chewing their pencils.

"We forbid them to do it in class, but they can always do it in private, during the breaks," says 6th-grade teacher Fiona Highsmith. Most teachers share the opinion that pencil chewing helps kids boost their self-confidence. "It makes them feel "cool," which can take several definitions, including intelligent, streetwise, and plain macho, depending on the hardness of the pencil tip."

So, after pencils, what's next, one may ask. Lollipops? Fellatio? Scientists are no less puzzled than us. "All this is but speculation," says Dr. McDermott, admitting that it's too early to point fingers at innocent phallic symbols.

The research continues, as doctors are currently running experiments to define the effects of chewing other kinds of office supplies, like mechanical pencils, markers, and feather quills. Until more results are gathered, however, school students are advised to hold their pencils in their mouths, using cigarette holders.