A Smokers Dilemma

Smoking is an incredibly toxic habit that has plagued America since the nation was
founded. Since then many studies have been done and many things have been proven about the
dangers of smoking and how not only smoking can harm people but even the second hand smoke
can be deadly. So why do people still smoke. Nicotine is the key drug in cigarettes and a
stimulant that can cause sharpness or alertness, calmness or relaxation also an enhancement of
motor skills. But is that really a reason to risk all the potential negative side effects that nicotine
also brings such as: Alzheimer's, Schizophrenia and lung and throat cancer to name a few. What
causes so many people, particularly young people to take up smoking when there are so many
reasons not to?
Essential Question: What social factors lead to higher smoking rates?
Evidence shows that people who may be encountering more stress in their lives tend to
smoke more. For example the LGBT community has much higher smoking rates than their
heterosexual counterparts very consistently. Another trend that occurs is that people who have
only received a high school education or just some college have higher smoking rates possibly
due to the stress of having to find work and competing with people more educated than them.
There is also a correlation between marriage and smoking. In general many different social
factors that lead to more stress tend drive people towards smoking so that they can relax.

Selected
Characteristic

All persons
18 years
of age
and over

All current
smokers

Every day
smokers

Some day
smokers

Former
smokers

Non-smokers

Widowed

13,572

1,622

1,351

270

4,560

7,145

Divorced

25,329

7,709

6,514

1,195

5,964

11,396

Married

123,681

20,464

16,266

4,198

29,992

71,940

Living with Partner

15,392

5,555

4,688

867

2,805

6,875

Single

46,733

10,552

7,782

2,770

4,639

31,071

Smoking is a major detriment to our society and it wastes health care money that could be
put to better uses. Smoking is something that in recent history has been so talked about and
proven to be horrible for people yet why do we do it? There is a lot of evidence that proves a
connection between stress and the continued use of nicotine. As a society there needs to be more
measures in place to help people deal with intense stress so people do not feel the need to turn to
drugs in order to feel better.
When doing research I encountered problems when I was trying to find data that would
give me a lot of different time periods for the data collection but I encountered a lot of data that
was just for one or two non-consecutive years.
References: http://www.lung.org/stop-smoking/tobacco-control-advocacy/reports-resources/tobaccopolicy-trend-reports/lgbt-issue-brief-update.pdf
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_10/sr10_242.pdf#table24
http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/index.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/pdf/wk/mm6035.pdf#page=21

Author: Taylor McClintic