Many Smokers Start as Young Adults : Health: UCSD study suggests that colleges ban cigarettes and that prevention efforts, which now ignore 18- to 25-year-olds, be expanded.

A significant number of smokers begin lighting up between 18 and 25, an age group that is ignored by smoking-prevention efforts, according to a nationwide study by UC San Diego scientists.

The findings, which will be published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, suggest that anti-smoking campaigns should be expanded to include young adults.

The UCSD scientists propose that colleges across the nation adopt smoking bans and prohibit the sale of cigarettes on college property.

“If you get young people through without smoking to age 25, chances are they will never start smoking. With effective bans at the work site or college, you might be able to keep people from smoking,” said Elizabeth Gilpin, a co-author of the study and a senior statistician in the university’s cancer-prevention program who specializes in population studies.

Tobacco industry officials, meanwhile, said the study is malarkey, and that young adults who smoke made an informed decision when they chose to light up. Further, they said, the proposal to ban smoking on colleges and to orient anti-smoking campaigns to young adults smacks of a Big Brother-like attempt to control behavior.

“I can hardly believe that anyone would say with a straight face that a person in that age group doesn’t have a wealth of information about smoking and health. . . . You have to conclude that they have the information and have made a choice that (proponents of a smoking ban) don’t agree with,” said Walker Merryman, vice president of the Washington-based Tobacco Institute. “This comes perilously close to smelling of behavior control. It sends a shudder down my spine.”

Gilpin, working with John Pierce, co-author of the study and director of UCSD’s population studies in the cancer-prevention program, analyzed 91,000 interviews conducted across the nation by the National Center for Health Statistics. The study examined groups of men and women born since 1920, looking at the ages when most people started smoking.

Now, 15 states, including California, and many schools ban smoking in schools; other school districts restrict smoking to designated areas. Such restrictions, according to the study, discourage youngsters from smoking regularly.

But once they leave school, the restrictions disappear, allowing those who might have experimented with cigarette smoking to develop a more serious habit, according to the study.

In terms of cigarette smoking, researchers classify young adults into a progression of non-contemplators, contemplators, experimenters, occasional users and regular users of tobacco. At any point in the progression, a smoker can be derailed, according to the study.

Most smokers begin between the ages of 15 and 18, Gilpin said. But a slightly smaller number pick up the habit as young adults, and these are not now targeted by prevention efforts.

Such efforts focus only on youngsters, neglecting the key group of young adults, Gilpin said. And the campaign encouraging smokers to quit focuses on an older group--once again, leaving out young adults.

“You can’t just say to them, ‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ because they can make their own decisions, but if you make it more difficult for them to smoke, they may be less likely to take it up,” Gilpin said.

At UCSD, smoking is prohibited in all buildings--including dormitories--and cigarette products are not sold on campus property--a rule at all UC campuses, said UCSD Vice Chancellor for Administration Wayne Kennedy.

“I am in favor of banning smoking because there are obvious health hazards,” Kennedy said. “We implemented our policy with a minimum of difficulties. If it’s not an issue at UCSD, it doesn’t need to be an issue elsewhere.”