Social Smoking by University of California
While many health interests worry about persistently high rates of cigarette smoking among college students, little research has tracked qualitative changes in student habits such as “social smoking.” A survey of 670 University of California, Santa Cruz, undergraduate students ages 18-43, mean age 20.6, found 57% of the weighted sample smoked cigarettes in the past year, compared to 37% of college undergraduates nationally and 34% of UCSC students’ parents. However, two-thirds of UCSC student smokers smoke socially (less than daily), compared to 60% of student smokers nationally and 16% of parent smokers. Half of UCSC social smokers report smoking less than an entire cigarette per occasion and 70% report smoking less today than in the past; the fraction who smoke heavily tend to have parents who smoke heavily. Students’ reports indicating their social smoking is an equilibrium behavior unlikely to lead to heavier smoking need longitudinal investigation.
Concern has been expressed that college students ages 18-24 show the highest rates of cigarette smoking today, as well as lesser declines in cigarette smoking over the last 25 years, compared to younger teens and older adults. Monitoring the Future (Johnston, O’Malley & Schulenberg, 1980-2004) finds the percentage of college students one to four years beyond high school who reported smoking cigarettes in the previous year or previous month in 2004 was virtually the same as in the first survey in 1980 (Appendix A). However, bigger drops were recorded in college students’ daily smoking, especially heavier (half a pack or more) daily smoking.
Persistent high smoking rates among these young, well-educated populations together with standard assumptions about nicotine’s addictiveness create apprehensions of a future smoking revival. However, there are indications that today’s smoking among high school seniors and college students differs qualitatively from past patterns. In 1980, 51% of college students who smoked at all smoked daily and 35% smoked heavily; in 2004, just 38% and 19%, respectively (Johnston, O’Malley & Schulenberg, 1980-2005). High school and college students’ smoking, once dominated by daily use, increasingly is dominated by episodic weekend or occasional “social” use.
Students’ trend toward “social smoking” is poorly understood (Moran, Wechsler & Rigotti, 2004). Some health experts regard it as a stable behavior but argue true social smoking is rare (University Health Center, 2005), while others view it as a stage among college students who smoke cigarettes occasionally in connection with drinking alcohol and socializing (Hines, Fretz & Nollen, 1998). Others believe college students’ social smoking “may represent a stage in the uptake of smoking” (Moran, Wechsler & Rigotti, 2004, p. 1033) and “can wind up as a lifelong problem” (Office of Health Education, 2005). A California Department of Health Services anti-smoking ad declares that young “social smokers” will progress rapidly to pack-a-day smokers.