Social Smoking by University of California. Part 3
University of California, Santa Cruz, students appear to have evolved a widespread pattern of lighter cigarette smoking. UCSC students report smoking cigarettes socially at much higher rates, smoking heavily at much lower rates, and smoking less than the whole cigarette than their parents do. The small number of parent social smokers, the large number of student social smokers, and the lack of correlation between parent smoking status and student social smoking status suggest social smoking is incubated in modern high school and college environments. Conversely, the few UCSC students most at risk for future heavy smoking have heavy-smoking parents and have progressed to daily smoking themselves.
Two questions arise: First, does students’ “social smoking” represent a new trend toward lighter, non-addictive smoking that promises to reduce cigarette consumption and health injury? Bjartveit and Tverdal (2005) find that compared to smokers of 25 or more cigarettes per day, those who smoke 1-4 cigarettes per day experienced reduced relative risks of ischemic heart disease of 20%, cancer (60%), lung cancer (90%), and mortality (50%). However, they also found that compared to nonsmokers, light daily smokers suffered significantly higher rates of lung cancer and ischemic heart disease, slightly higher rates of cancer, and higher rates of overall mortality. The dose-response effect found suggests that smoking less than daily would further reduce the hazards of smoking, though not to zero.
Second, is social smoking among college students a stable, equilibrium habit or simply the precursor to heavy daily smoking, albeit commencing at older ages than in the past? This cross-sectional study is inadequate to assess that question; in fact, it provides evidence for both views. Older UCSC students report similar rates of social smoking but higher rates of daily (including heavy daily) smoking than do younger students. However, a large majority of current UCSC social smokers report smoking less (72%) or the same amount (23%) now than in the past; only a small fraction (5%) report smoking more.
If the effects observed are largely generational, we would expect follow-up studies to find today’s UCSC 18-19 year-old social smokers are not taking up daily smoking at the levels found among today’s UCSC over-21 students. If social smoking is indeed a generational trend, it is likely to be stable and to predict much lower levels of cigarette consumption and smoking-related morbidity and mortality in the future among these student populations.
Health educators and policy makers are understandably reluctant to promote any form of tobacco use (University Health Center, 2005; Office of Health Education, 2005). Fortunately, many measures that deter smoking, such as raised taxes on tobacco and smoke-free campuses and other locales (Bratton & Trieu, 2005) may also deter addictive smoking by adding to its cost and inconvenience. Further longitudinal study of the conditions that preserve lighter social smoking as an equilibrium habit or a precursor to smoking cessation, versus the conditions that promote transition from social smoking to addictive smoking, is needed before policies to address social smoking can be refined.