Sarah Lipman
Smoked Out
the decline of cigarettes and rise of hookah on campus
PrintWalking past McBain or Butler on a pleasant winter afternoon, one can almost certainly find two or three people loitering outside with cigarettes in their hands, or at the very least, the faint scent of tobacco lingering in the frigid air. Despite the inevitability of running into cigarette fumes on campus, the percentage of student non-smokers in the Columbia University community is increasing at a steady rate, according to a voluntary survey, the National College Health Assessment, conducted by the American College Health Association . While glamorizing smoking is still an integral aspect of youth culture, especially in cosmopolitan Manhattan, the power of tobacco has waned on campus in recent years—except perhaps in the form of hookah, embraced by many students who refuse to smoke cigarettes.
According to Samuel Charles Smock, a sophomore in SEAS who likes to enjoy the occasional study-break cigarette, “smoking has become a whole lot less popular these days. I mean, it’s become more popular for me, because I’m in college, but not in the wide scope, when you look at the legislation that has been passed recently.” In 2009, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg attempted to ban smoking in city beaches and parks, on top of an existing ban on smoking in indoor public spaces. Smock does not consider himself addicted to smoking, as he can go a week or two without a cigarette, although he admits to smoking at age 12 in order to be “cool.”
Consistent with Smock’s remarks, Michael McNeil, the interim director for the Alice! Health Promotion Program , notes, “Looking at our data from the past six years, we’ve noticed that the non-smoker rate is creeping up.” The ACHA-NCHA provides non-smoker rate data for the Columbia community at three points in time: Spring 2005 at 80 percent (the national rate was 78 percent), Spring 2006 at 79 percent (national rate 82 percent), and Spring 2009 at 84 percent (national rate to be determined). He notes that the figures are determined from a voluntary sample sent out to all Columbia students. This eliminates random sample bias but not the possibility that the resulting sample over-represents students who have stronger opinions about smoking. There is no data for the number of students who use hookah; for them, hookah may be more of a social activity than an addiction.
The trendy view of smoking, in spite of the decreasing number of student smokers, is apparent when one walks down Broadway into the beauty chain store, Ricky’s NYC. One of the store’s most recent window advertisements, meant for the holiday season, depicts a glamorous woman nonchalantly holding a cigar in her hand, seemingly supporting the idea that smoking is youthful and fresh. However, Tommy Kim, Creative Director at Ricky’s NYC, states, “the concept of the window advertisement was actually more of a woman empowerment meets anti-classic holiday window message more so than anything else.” Kim continues, “the female model with a cigar in hand represented contrasts to something that is more commonly associated with male stockbrokers,” instead of an attempt at glamorizing the cigar itself. Yet, placing a cigar in an attractive advertisement highlights the trendiness of smoking, regardless of the innocuous intentions.
Entrepreneur and style blogger, Gala Darling of iCiNG (galadarling.com), who has chronicled her choice to quit after years of “social smoking”—the practice of smoking for social interaction—agrees with the sentiment that smoking is a matter of image improvement. She says, “Smoking has been glamorized since the very beginning, and even though people are now much more conscious of the health risks involved, there’s still a certain type of chic associated with it—that tousled, Parisian, rebellious kind of thing.” Kim of Ricky’s would agree with this sentiment, and the many students who choose to take a smoke break before returning to schoolwork do have a certain airy nonchalance. Even hookah can be seen as a “sophisticated” form of relaxation because students use it to smoke together and socialize.
Most students, including those who smoke, are well informed of the health risks of both smoking and secondhand smoking, according to the Surgeon General of the Department of Health and Human Services. However, this does not deter them from lighting up a cigarette or enjoying hookah with their friends. “With the amount of stress at school, smoking has definitely become my saving grace,” admits Jasmine Ayana Sudarkasa, a first-year in Columbia College who grew up in South Africa, where cigarette-smoking is a much more socially acceptable practice than it is in the United States. Sudarkasa has experienced prolonged moments of coughing that may have been caused by smoking, but she is not willing to quit just yet.
Luckily for the smoking population at Columbia, smoking is still permitted on campus in open areas. “I’ve gotten annoyed glances outside of school but not here,” said Michael Dominic Gartner, a CC sophomore, as he smoked a cigarette next to Lerner Hall. Alexis Nedd, a first-year in CC, agrees with this statement, adding that her friends are always trying to get her to quit but that they do not seem overly bothered by her habit. Interestingly, Nedd’s non-smoking friends love to use hookah and see it as a more socially acceptable option than cigarette smoking, even though they know that it also presents serious health risks. “The tobacco in hookah is not filtered by water—it is cooled by water, but it is not safer or cleaner in any way,” says McNeil. Unfortunately, these facts do not deter students from frequenting the many hookah bars and lounges in the city.
Even though the percentage of smokers has decreased on campus in recent years, tobacco still retains its importance as a social lubricator—for instance, few full-scale studies reflect the use of hookah on campus, though it seems to be a different type of social activity than smoke breaks outside Butler. We may be a healthier student body, but non-smoking rates alone won’t tell the whole story.
4 February 2010
vol. 8, issue 2
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