It wasn't long ago that the consummate image of the collegiate intellectual pictured the individual with an espresso in one hand and a cigarette in the other. As more information is released about the long-term effects of smoking, however, it's only natural to see a decline in the prevalence of this image on American university campuses.
Still, American smoking culture hasn't completely gone up in flames - so why do some students find it near impossible to bum a cigarette on campus?
"The more educated people are, the less likely they are to smoke," Edith Balbach, a senior lecturer in the Department of Community Health, said. "The mistake is to assume they're smarter. One reason people smoke is that there's a particular image that's attached to cigarettes promoted by the tobacco industry with the help of Hollywood. In much the same way people wear particular fashions, they think of the cigarette as an accessory. The problem is that it's a highly addictive accessory. It's not the nicotine that kills you - the nicotine keeps you addicted until the smoke does."
The correlation between education and smoking habits is, as Balbach pointed out, significant. The American Heart Association reported that only 12 percent of the most educated group in America - those who have had 16 years of education or more - smoke cigarettes, compared to 35 percent of the least educated group. This can be attributed to any number of things, an oft-mentioned possibility being increased awareness of tobacco's effects.
Sophomore Anna Furman thinks Tufts' near lack of cigarette smoking has to do with a combination of factors, mostly the particular historical moment in which we are living.
"There are so many things you can't take control of in terms of your health, and smoking is the easiest thing," she said. "You just don't do it. My grandpa died of lung cancer and his generation didn't know; our generation knows, so why would we?"
While Furman is anti-cigarette smoke, she feels partaking in alcohol and marijuana consumption in moderation is okay, which is a common sentiment at Tufts, according to sophomore Katherine Griffiths, herself a smoker.
Griffiths said that people on campus are quick to view cigarette smokers in a negative light but do not seem bothered by people's choices to use other harmful, and often illegal, substances.
"I got yelled at in front of a frat once," she said. "Some guy yelled at me, 'Don't smoke cigarettes - smoke weed,' which seems to be the general mindset of the campus."
That smoking tobacco is more harmful than smoking marijuana, however, is a common misconception among college students. According to the American Lung Association, marijuana smoke contains a greater number of carcinogens than tobacco smoke.
"The problem you get with a joint is that the [marijuana] leaf is often not as finely ground, and you inhale deep into your lungs, and it's the unburned particulate matter of a joint that is awful for your lungs," Balbach said. "People don't smoke marijuana the way they smoke cigarettes, but they also don't smoke marijuana as long as they smoke cigarettes. The active ingredient in marijuana is not as addictive the way nicotine is."
There are students at Tufts who do smoke cigarettes. Much of the subculture of smoking on campus has to do with the social aspect of the activity, sophomore Katy Kidwell, a smoker, said. She said that some groups of friends are simply more smoke-friendly than others. Just as people sit outside and congregate around a hookah pipe, some students congregate outside of the library, dining halls and social events to take a break and have a cigarette.
"I also know a lot of people that don't usually smoke, [who] when they're drunk they ask me for a cigarette," she said. "I feel like I encounter so many people that are pretty against it on campus, but in my group of friends, it's so accepted and encouraged. People offer me cigarettes if I'm sitting out with them and not smoking. I decided over the summer I was going to quit, but I have yet to have had three days here without smoking. I do it because it's almost ingrained in my social life."
Griffiths, who is from London, said she experiences much more backlash against her cigarette use at Tufts than she ever did at home.
"I guess I'm used to people being less judgmental because I'm international," she said. "People in London smoke a lot; it wasn't unusual for me to be smoking when I was 16. Here, I just walk around and get dirty looks. You get a lot of people who are that person who list off all these facts why smoking is bad for you, but I know this, you don't have to tell me this."
Still, Griffiths said that while it's incredibly common to see people smoking in London, the British are not ignorant about the dangers of tobacco.
"On the back of cigarette packs in England, sometimes there's a picture of a dead fetus or a sperm that says it decreases fertility," she said. "The grossest one I've seen is a chest cavity with a rotting heart. I was pretty surprised by how blatant it is, but people become jaded to it really quickly."
Kidwell agreed and said that she's never found anti-smoking advertising effective.
Balbach, who has conducted extensive research on the subject, said that the most important frontier in anti-smoking advertising is in the public service arena.
"The public campaigns are getting better and better. For years, they didn't target the tobacco industry itself; it was all targeted at you and your behavior," she said. "The campaigns have gotten much better at naming the industry and trying to hold it accountable."
While the dangers of smoking cigarettes and marijuana are continually the subject of new research and information, though, one type of smoking that Balbach finds under-addressed is the semi-recent trend of smoking hookah, she said.
"It's just as dangerous as smoking any other product. People think just because it's cooled in the water that the carbon monoxide goes out of it, and it doesn't," she said. "[I] worry about the people who assume these things aren't hazardous and worry that they won't become compulsive or addictive. I think all those things are kind of dangerous. I'm a huge advocate of living a life of moderation."
