Thank You For [Not] Smoking

By ISABEL BOHRER and SADIA LATIFI

It’s 11 p.m. and a group of freshmen is huddled outside John Jay Hall talking, laughing—and smoking. It’s 20 degrees, but the group is always there.

Despite a city ban on smoking in public places and increased on taxes on cigarettes, New York City continues to attract smokers from all across the world. And Columbia’s campus is no different.

“When I came to New York, I morphed from an occasional smoker into a relative chain smoker,” said Joseph Daniels, CC ’09, who started smoking when he was 13. “The pressures of school, the drinking culture, the need for a legitimate break when studying—all seemed conducive to smoking more often and more heavily.”

Even Samuel Seward, assistant vice president and medical director for Health Services at Columbia, understands that cigarettes can be a part of the transition to college.

“It is well known that people in their late teens and early twenties are at a time in their lives where smoking is an attractive thing to be doing ... we certainly see that here at Columbia. Some people come to Columbia already having started smoking and then there’s a whole other population of students who start smoking here.”

Despite the spike in cigarette use in college, Columbia students are at the national average for smoking—contrary to the popular perception that more kids smoke on this campus because of its urban location.

In fact, 80 percent of Columbia students do not smoke regularly, according to the National College Health Assessment survey that was taken by 2,078 undergraduate students in 2004. Student perception of cigarette use on campus is much higher than actual use, however. Undergraduates at Columbia are more likely than their peers nationally to think that “typical” students smoked one or more days in the last month.

This means that Columbians perceive themselves as social smokers when in fact most students don’t even smoke, according to Alice! Health Program Director Melissa Kenzig, who oversees administration of the online assessment.

The ban on smoking in the city has made an observable difference, however.

“The prevalence of smoking in the city is down and that’s partly because of health policies and not having smoking in public places. It’s been a remarkable curbing of smoking activity in New York City, and New York City is really one of the shining lights in public health perspective and that’s by creating rules, by encouraging people not to smoke,” Seward explained.

Daniels said that while the ban makes it difficult to smoke, it does little to detract from smoking itself.

“At times it does seem as if the city has a vendetta against smokers: not allowing us to smoke in bars or hookah establishments and charging exorbitant prices for cigarettes. But the truth about a smoker is this: place as many bans or taxes as one wants on smoking, smokers are going to smoke regardless,” he said.

Addiction aside, there’s another side effect of smoking—forming new friendships.

“There is definitely a vibrant and large smoking subculture at Columbia. People meet outside of the dormitories or Butler to have a cigarette and catch up,” Daniels explained. “I personally cannot count how many times I have called a friend solely to ask if he or she wants ‘to go have a cig?’ Moreover, it really is one of the greatest institutions (besides the cancer) for meeting new people. Almost half of my friends are either people I have met smoking or with whom I have gotten to truly become friends over a cigarette.”

The camaraderie can especially strengthen during inclement weather.

“Smokers, even if they do not know one another, already have something in common, and when sitting in the cold January weather, it’s nice to talk to that complete stranger smoking next to you about how much you’re freezing your ass off,” Daniels said.

The adverse health effects don’t seem to matter, either.

“A lot of people enjoy smoking, they enjoy the taste of tobacco, and I think that frequently a lot of the adverse health effects that one needs to worry about with smoking truly won’t be experienced for decades and therefore, there’s a sense that there’s a lot of time between when this will catch up,” Seward said.

One student, CC ’07, who wished to remain anonymous, just recently quit smoking for health reasons after five years—even though he says he loves it.
“To be honest, I was mostly concerned about my skin and teeth ... and because I knew if I didn’t stop now, I’d forever be a smoker,” he explained.

He further described the paradoxical culture.

“It’s an odd community, a camaraderie of people who ‘bond’ over their desire to be alone in the cold and away from others,” he said.