Anti-Smoking Efforts Skip Young Adults, Scientists Say

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

The finding, published today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute by UC San Diego scientists, suggests that anti-smoking campaigns should be expanded to include young adults.

The UCSD scientists propose that colleges adopt bans on smoking 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.

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

“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.

Gilpin, working with John Pierce, co-author of the study and director of UCSD’s population studies in the cancer prevention program, analyzed the results of 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.

Tobacco industry officials cast doubt on the study and made a similar point to Gilpin: that young adults who smoke have made an informed decision about when they chose to light up. Further, they said, the proposal to ban smoking on colleges and to gear anti-smoking campaigns to young adults smacked 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 ban) don’t agree with,” said Walker Merryman, vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Tobacco Institute. “This comes perilously close to smelling of behavior control.”