The data were collected from students in Ankara, the capital and second largest city in Turkey. The instrument used was a questionnaire with 43 closed-ended items. The primary reason for this study was to assess the degree of substance use prevalence and the reasons for such use among middle and high school students. Study results showed that 24 percent of the students were smokers, with little difference by sex. Despite study limitations, the results obtained prove that predicting youth smoking behavior is a challenging task. The most likely variables like parents’ smoking, intactness of the family, receiving offers to smoke cigarettes, and having smoking friends did not seem to influence student smoking. The influence of the important variables, such as having a stepmother, and having smoking sisters and brothers was the opposite. Schools and neighborhoods, to a lesser extent, also seemed to have an effect on smoking. This is cultural in Turkey. Making money at earlier ages and working in environments that encourage smoking can initiate smoking at earlier ages, which they maintain afterwards. Neighborhoods vary considerably in their quality of life. Generally, families in poor neighborhoods provide inconsistent support to their children, have low educational aspirations, lack of closeness and involvement in the children’s activities, exert weak control and discipline, approve of substance use explicitly or implicitly and resort to it on a regular basis, and abuse their children emotionally or physically. Poor neighborhoods also house conservative and religious people who not only oppose any substance use but also cannot afford to buy them. This is why students from some poor neighborhoods are less likely to smoke. These findings imply that neighborhood, family well being, religiosity, and school type are interrelated and should be included in further research to be conducted in developing countries. 5 tables, appendix, 55 references