Smoking makes the campus scene

[Moloch]

College life has long provided young people with a smorgasbord of late-night diversions.

But now students have been flocking to bars, nightclubs and campus parties for a new kind of social event: tobacco-industry-sponsored parties, complete with complimentary cigarettes. A new study suggests these parties are a powerful marketing tool that encourages some to start smoking.

Nearly one in 10 college students have gone to an industry-sponsored party, according to an article in the January edition of the American Journal of Public Health. Students at all but one of 119 colleges surveyed have attended the parties. At some schools, 27% of students have attended tobacco bashes, which often include live music and freebies such as T-shirts.

Students who did not smoke before college were almost twice as likely to start if they attended industry-backed parties that included free cigarettes, the article said. The article was based on results from the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Survey, for which nearly 11,000 students were interviewed in 2001. Although the study does not prove that such parties directly led people to smoke, the authors say there might be a strong link.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=676&e=5&u=/usatoday/20041229/ts_usatoday/smokingmakesthecampusscene

[dbt]

1. Hmmm. What if the Likker Industry started giving out free booze?

How far would that be allowed to go? All hail the Free Market, I reckon...

:freak:
dbt

[Archae]

3. Got news fer ya...

Jagermeister has been doing that for years, among others.

[leQ]

10. some of my best parties were absolut(ly) fab

god i miss those good ol' days. but tobacco isn't alcohol i'm a smoker who would give his left jewel to quit. nothing works. and i know they're playin around with the chemical content of these fags. i'm smoking more, a lot more, than i did 2 years ago.

[DS1]

2. It's really bad at my school, the average has to be at least triple

that of regular society. The place is covered in butts after the first damn day back, because the sniveling little shits all think they're too fucking good to actually throw their butts in the buttcan.

[da_chimperor]

5. People like that give us nice smokers a bad name

Bastards. Smokers have a bad enough rep as it is.

[DS1]

6. Yeah, I recognize the "I'm the man" approach to life

inherent with people on the verge of 20-something, they still piss me off. It's not just the smokers, lots of them litter - it's why they have an overabundance of custodians cleaning the same thing over and over day in and day out.

Fucking kids.

[da_chimperor]

8. People like that piss me off, especially combined with the littering

the tree hugger in me hates litter and those who do it. You should smack some sense into them.

[Child_Of_Isis]

4. Well that's sickening. n/t

[0007]

7. Hmmm where are the 'Right to Life' folks when you need 'em?

Aye mate, ya say they're at the 'Planned Parenthood Clinic?

[BiggJawn]

9. Hope that doesn't catch on here.

The residence halls have been smoke-free for years, and the whole campus will smoke-free by the end of next year.

There's not enough time between classes for them to step "across the border" and light up between classes....

[Art_from_Ark]

11. My high school math teacher started smoking in college

and he said he regretted it ever since