Tobacco-Company-Sponsored Parties
With Free Cigarettes May Encourage College
Students to Start Smoking
Industry’s Youngest Legal Targets Now
18- to 24-Year Olds
BOSTON (December 28, 2004) -- A widespread tobacco
industry marketing strategy — sponsoring
social events and giving out free cigarettes at
bars, clubs, and college parties — is reaching
students and may be encouraging them to take up
smoking, according to a new study released today.
The study, part of the Harvard School of Public
Health (HSPH) College Alcohol Study (CAS), appears
in the January issue of the American Journal
of Public Health. The study was led by Nancy
Rigotti, MD, Director, Tobacco Research and Treatment
Center of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
According to the study, students at all but one
of the 119 U.S. colleges and universities surveyed
reported attending a tobacco-industry-sponsored
social event on or off campus in 2001. Although
the number of students reached at many schools
was relatively small, up to 27 percent of students
were reached at some schools. Overall, 8.5 percent
of students had attended a tobacco-industry-sponsored
social event where free cigarettes were distributed.
Bars and nightclubs were the most common settings,
but students also reported attending events on
college campuses, a site that has received less
attention and provides direct access to students.
Those who had attended these tobacco promotions
were more likely to be current smokers, compared
to students who had not attended an event. Perhaps
most notably, the study suggested that these events
could be a powerful inducement to begin smoking.
Students who had not started to smoke by the age
of 19 were especially likely to have become smokers
by the time of the survey if they had been exposed
to a tobacco promotion at a bar, nightclub, or
college social event.
This is the first study that has measured young
adults’ exposure to a tobacco industry marketing
strategy that has assumed greater prominence since
the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, in which
the tobacco industry agreed not to market to teenagers,
making young adults (aged 18 to 24) its youngest
legal targets. "By distributing cigarettes
and sponsoring these events in bars and on college
campuses, the tobacco industry promotes the idea
that cigarettes are an essential part of young
adults’ social lives," said Rigotti.
The study analyzed data from the 2001 HSPH CAS,
a random sample of 10,904 students enrolled in
119 nationally representative 4-year U.S. colleges
and universities. The study authors were Rigotti,
Susan Moran, MD, also of the MGH Tobacco Research
and Treatment Center; and Henry Wechsler, PhD,
director of the HSPH College Alcohol Study.
Bars and nightclubs have assumed greater importance
for tobacco marketing since the Master Settlement
Agreement, which limits the distribution of free
cigarette samples to facilities that do not admit
minors. Bars and nightclubs also are smoker-friendly
environments for the tobacco industry, because
they are among the few places where smoking is
not generally restricted by clean-air laws.
In the study, students who reported attending
these events were more likely to be current cigarette
smokers (defined as having smoked a cigarette
in the past 30 days) than students who had not
attended one of these events. Even after statistical
adjustments for a broad range of factors that
might have explained the relationship, a strong
association remained between attending tobacco-industry-sponsored
events and current smoking, with those attending
such events 75 percent more likely to be current
smokers..
Furthermore, the analysis suggested that the
effect of bar promotions on smoking behavior was
strongest on students who had entered college
as nonsmokers. Of the 8,482 students (78 percent)
who did not smoke regularly before age 19, the
current smoking prevalence rate was
23.7 percent among those who had attended a promotional
event compared with 11.8 percent among those who
had not. In contrast, in the 2,334 students who
smoked regularly before age 19, there was no significant
difference in current smoking prevalence between
those who had and had not attended a tobacco promotional
event.
"These findings should serve as a wake-up
call to college and university administrators,"
said Wechsler. "The evidence that these events
may influence a non-smoking young person’s
decision to start smoking is a good reason they
should be alert to tobacco industry sponsorship
of these events and take appropriate action on
their campuses." The American College Health
Association recommends that colleges ban the free
distribution of tobacco products on campus, including
at fraternities and sororities, and prohibit tobacco
industry sponsorship of social events held by
any organization that receives college funds.
"These findings also give states and communities
another good reason to adopt smoking bans in bars
and nightclubs," says Rigotti. "Tobacco-free
bars and nightclubs are likely to be less attractive
as sites for tobacco industry promotions. Decoupling
smoking and drinking will likely be an effective
way to counteract the tobacco industry’s
marketing strategies."
The study was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, the Flight Attendant Medical Research
Institute, and the National Heart Lung and Blood
Institute. |
