Students import smoking habits from abroad

If you've walked outside Hodson, MSE or any party this year, you've probably walked through a cloud of smoke.

And you're probably getting used to it.

"In the beginning, it's different -- you saw kids smoking and you say, `those are the kids who smoke.' That's how you know them," says senior Matt Bergman. "Year by year, I guess probably everyone tries smoking, but they're not doing it because they want to be one of the smokers, but just because they feel like smoking."

Among upperclassmen, smoking seems to be becoming far more prevalent, and new smokers more common.

"I started smoking the winter break of my junior year," senior Altair Peterson said. "I was pretty much a casual smoker. I could go weeks without smoking and maybe have one or two when I went out. Then I went to Argentina."

After years of warnings about the health dangers of cigarettes, Peterson found that the new cultural norms she experienced while studying abroad were enough to change her perceptions of smoking.

"It was part of the culture," she said. "My host mother would smoke seven cigarettes during dinner alone. When I asked her if I could host a study party at her house, she just reminded me to put out ashtrays. It seemed so normal, and it became a part of my basic routine there."

Senior Nabiha Syed had the same experience. "I wanted to be cool," she said. "Listen I was in London, going to Oxford, and have a super-Californian accent -- so I figured that since I couldn't pull off the sexy British humor, I would just pout seductively with a cancer stick hanging out of my mouth and nobody would know the difference. It worked."

"This is an age when people are going away from the things that they've been raised with, and figuring out what is right or wrong from their own perspective," Mahlet Endale, a cultural adjustment specialist at the Counseling Center, said. "And when you consider how isolated people can become while abroad, smoking does seem like a good way to meet people. To become more accepted into the culture and with other people, to make friends -- smoking is a way to relate."

When students return to campus, smoking continues to serve as a way to relate.

"Because I became a smoker, the people around me have sort of picked it up, because they know I have cigarettes," Peterson said.

Her friend, senior Amanda Pace, has begun smoking largely for that reason.

"I've always known smoking was bad for your health," Pace said. "I just started this summer, when I'm out with friends. I usually smoke with Altair. It's definitely becoming more socially acceptable as we've gotten older. With the stress level here, it's relaxing."

Many students cited smoking as a source of stress relief, or as an excuse to take a break and socialize.

"I'll have a light if others are, or if I'm looking for a reason to take a library break," Syed said.

"It started for me as a stress relief thing," senior Dave Johnson, who studied abroad in Copenhagen said. "It was kind of like a nightcap. But whenever we'd go out in Copenhagen, you could smoke there because nobody cares. You're around people and they're doing it -- it's relaxing and who cares, what the hell, you just want a cigarette."

"We are in a really stressful environment," Bergman agreed, "I know people who like to smoke while they're walking as a way to relieve stress. For me, I never feel that way -- there are other ways to relieve stress."

Bergman, like many students, smoked a few times while abroad in Florence but left the habit there when he returned.

"Being in Europe and seeing ten-year-olds smoke on the street made me wonder what the hell was going on," Bergman said. "You see really good things in Europe, and then there are other things that make you realize what's not good. There are other ways to adapt to the culture than to smoke. It says right on Italian cigarette packages, `smoking kills.'"

Senior Rebecca Lin, who studied abroad in London, agreed.

"There, everybody does it, but I didn't feel pressured to smoke and I've never had a desire to," she said. "The cartons in England say `smoking causes a slow and painful death.' But at the same time, it's still not effective."

"I definitely grew up thinking that smoking was just for the too-cool-for-school crowd," Syed said. "I still think that, but I guess I'm just more wildly attracted to the bad-girl image than I was before I went to England. Healthy isn't as dangerously romantic as devil-may-care self-endangerment."

Endale isn't surprised that so many students continue smoking when they return.

"You become changed in these experiences," she said. "One of the reverse adjustments is that you're this new person that you have to reconcile with your old life when you return, even though you've moved a step beyond it. It becomes one of the ways to hold on to the person you were while you were there."

Despite these reasons, Endale still said, "But I would not be surprised if most former study-abroad students quit after a few more months of dirty looks."

Peterson is trying to quit by next semester.

"I'm back from Argentina, and smoking is definitely not the routine here," she said. "It sort of made me wish that I hadn't picked it up. I can hear the change in my voice already. But quitting is hard to do."