Smoking on Campus

For Mandie Sload, college and nicotine go hand in hand. A 20-year-old student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Sload never smoked in high school. She doesnЎЇt smoke much over the summers but as soon as a new semester starts, she is back to four or five cigarettes a day. What is it about college life that lures her to smoke? Stress? Peer pressure? Smoking is an addiction. Tobacco contains nicotine, a drug that is addictive. Once you start smoking, it is very hard, but not impossible to quit. Until recently, I think smoking on college campuses was largely ignored. Alcohol is such a major issue in college that smoking takes a back seat. In the last few years, however, smoking has become a hot topic. One of the reasons for this increased importance is the recognition that the college years are crucial in making or breaking an addiction.

As a college student, I have seen first hand the prevalence of smoking. All across our campus, college students are lighting up at an alarming rate. In a campus survey I conducted of 15 college students in February 2002, eight students said they were current smokers. I surveyed eight males and seven females. My survey included 18 questions revealing gender, age, class, familial history of smoking, frequency of smoking, desire to quit, methods used to quit, awareness of hazards, etc. I surveyed several of my classmates in class, a few sorority sisters in our suite, and random students at the HUB.

Fifty-three percent of the individuals I surveyed smoke. Sixty-two percent of the students who smoke consider themselves Ў°social smokers.Ў± Eighty-seven percent of the smokers have tried to quit. The students who have tried to quit have used the cold turkey method and intake reduction by decreasing the number of cigarettes smoked in a week.

In addition to the surveys, I conducted three interviews of my roommates in my apartment, an interview of a student from the IUP branch campus at Punxsatawney, and a case study of my boyfriend, Jason Mavrich. Many of the students I interviewed reported the average age they tried their first cigarette was 15. Not surprisingly, I found that smoking is higher among students who have Ў°a strong party orientation.Ў± College students who are binge drinkers admit Ў°I only smoke when I drink.Ў± On the bright side, many of the cigarette smokers I interviewed said they do not smoke every day, indicating they are only casual users. My research did not show any relationship in smoking and age, sex, ethnicity, familial history, etc. Most of the college smokers I surveyed are not heavy smokers. Several of the smokers I talked to said they did not smoke daily, while others reported that they smoked every day but did not smoke more than one pack per day. Half of the college smokers I surveyed and interviewed reported they had tried to quit in the previous year, and several of them had made four or more attempts at kicking the addiction.

Many smokers, like Sload, take their first puffs in college. Other students experiment with cigarettes in high school but start smoking heavily in college. Everyone I surveyed and interviewed is aware that smoking is responsible for the deaths of many people every year. They know it increases the risk of heart attack and stroke and adversely affects breathing and the lungs. And like smokers of any age, many college students are actively trying to quit. Mandie Sload knows that four or five cigarettes a day are four or five too many. She plans to quit some day. She understands that if she quits her breath will smell better; she will taste and smell food better; her cough will go away; she will save money; she will reduce secondhand smoke for others; and she will reduce her risk of lung cancer, heart disease, strokes, lung disease, and respiratory illnesses.

Jason Mavrich, my case study, started smoking when he was in fifth grade. He was running around with a good friend when some older kids encouraged him to smoke. He began smoking to be cool and fit in with the older kids. Since that time, he has smoked on and off. In high school, after not smoking for a year and a half, he began to associate with more and more people who smoked. He began to smoke again and continued until last December when he went to boot camp and quit for what he thought was good. However, in the summer when he returned home from camp, he started smoking again. Now he is in the process of trying to quit once more.

Mavrich does not consider himself a heavy smoker. He started smoking as a social thing. As he got older it was both a social and drinking activity. Now he finds that he has sudden urges to smoke even when he is alone and not drinking. It is starting to affect his lungs and his physical activities. One