"Social smoking" prevalant at Hopkins

By: Phyllis Zhu

Posted: 10/23/08

The relatively new phenomenon of social smoking has risen nationally in the past few years, and this trend has become especially prevalent on college campuses.

According to the Center for Disease Control, an estimated 45 million adults in the United States smoke cigarettes, and 24 percent reported that they smoke occasionally. Nearly half of college smokers consider themselves some-day smokers or social smokers.

There is no single official definition for social or casual smoking, but it is generally characterized by smoking less than a pack a week, not every day and only in social situations.

The social environment and academic pressures of college often compel students to begin smoking. According to the Associate Director of the Center for Health Education and Wellness Barbara Gwinn, college students are the primary targets of tobacco companies and are especially susceptible to social smoking.

"This age group is heavily influenced by marketing ploys and strategies that encourage smoking. New social situations in combination with peer pressure may turn students, who rarely or never smoked before college, into addicted users. Freshmen are predominantly vulnerable because they are away from home and without parental supervision, possibly for the first time in their lives," Gwinn said.

For many college students, being friends with smokers or going to parties where people are smoking facilitates the adoption of the habit.

"I started because some of my friends smoked, so I would occasionally bum a cigarette off one of them [when] we were out," a senior, who wished to remain anonymous, said. "I used to smoke all the time, especially when drunk. I stopped because I didn't want the negative health consequences, but I think that some people probably smoke because if everyone else is smoking at a party, [you] are more inclined to smoke."

On top of social reasons, plain curiosity has also prompted students to begin smoking.

"I didn't start [smoking] because of peer pressure. I started over the summer. It was sort of a curiosity. I keep it under half a pack a week and only when I'm with other people," sophomore Mac Schwerin said.

"There's a certain temptation of cigarettes that's always been around," another anonymous student said.

A key reason why social smoking has become so widespread on college campuses is the false perception that smoking occasionally is less harmful than smoking regularly; casual smoking is associated with less nicotine intake, lower psychological dependence and less frequent tobacco exposure.

A recent study conducted by researchers at the University of Georgia, which was published online in the journal Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, demonstrated that smoking only a few times a week has the same effects as smoking regularly: subjects who were social smokers showed impairment of arterial function, which can eventually lead to cardiovascular disease.

Director of the Center for Health and Wellness Alan Joffe also stated that there is no safe level of smoking, and smoking anything, whether it is cigarettes, hookah, cigars or pipes, deposits the same carcinogens - cancer-causing agents - into the lungs. It is difficult, however, to determine if an individual will develop cancer from smoking socially.

"Cigarette smoke is cigarette smoke. As long as you continue to smoke and inhale, over time, those carcinogens cause damage to the basic protective mechanisms [in your lungs]," he said.

"I can't confirm whether [smoking] three cigarettes is OK but 10 isn't - it varies from person to person. Depending on your genetic make-up, some people are more susceptible to the effects of smoking. The [smoker] who doesn't have the [susceptible] genes may do just fine as a social smoker, but right now, that's hard to sort out on an individual basis. No one really knows whether a safe level [of smoking] exists, . . . but I don't think anyone can say if you only smoke X amount, you won't get into trouble, whereas if you smoke more than X amount, you will."

The concern of being addicted and transitioning to smoking daily has influenced some social smokers to quit.

"Since I read that each cigarette you smoke shortens your life by 13 minutes, I've been trying to quit," an anonymous senior said.

Joffe said that part of the problem with "social smoking" arises when the casual smoker denies their dependence by calling it a a mere "social habit."

"There are a whole range of outcomes: Some students who are social smokers at one time go on to become regular smokers; some continue to be social smokers; some quit. The pattern of smoking is pretty variable, and it has to do with what your friends are doing," Joffe said.

A National College Health Assessment conducted by the Health Education Office in spring 2008 showed that approximately 15 percent of Hopkins students have smoked at some point, and five to nine percent of those consider themselves to be social smokers.

Because social smoking is a relatively new phenomenon, few surveys have been conducted at Hopkins thusfar to obtain statistics about the prevalence of social smoking.