Research

Smoking still prominent on campuses nationwide
Although high school students are increasingly saying no to smoking, students often pick up the habit in college.  According to the 2005 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 31% of full-time college students smoke, while smokers only make up 25% of the general population.  College students may be at risk for smoking because of many factors, including the stress of schoolwork, peer pressure, social gatherings, and being in a new environment away from home.  Hookah smoking is also a popular trend, evidenced by a recent increase in the number of hookah bars in operation nationally.  Click here for the full article.

Prenatal exposure to drugs, alcohol and tobacco affect the brain into early adolescence, scans show
The adverse behavioral effects of prenatal exposure to tobacco, alcohol, and drugs have been well-documented, but neurological structural evidence of the damage has been elusive.  A new study used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to scan the brains of children who had experienced prenatal exposure to alcohol, tobacco, and drugs.  The results showed that children with exposure to multiple substances had decreased brain volume and less gray matter than unexposed children.  Children who had been exposed to more substances were more severely affected.  The researchers note that public health efforts might be more helpful if they aim to reduce pregnant women’s use of all psychoactive substances, rather than only focusing on individual substances.  Read more here.

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Reports

2006 National Youth Tobacco Survey and Key Prevalence Indicators
From 2004-2006, middle school students reported significant declines overall in current use of any tobacco product, cigarettes, cigars, and bidis, but not in current use of smokeless tobacco, pipes, or kreteks.  No significant changes overall in either the use of specific tobacco products or in the use of any tobacco product were observed among high school students during this same period.  While there is not a ready explanation at this time for the recent significant declines in tobacco use seen among middle school students, these younger students’ significantly lower level of exposure to pro-tobacco advertising and promotion may, at least in part, explain this decline.  When taken together, these patterns suggest that enhanced and sustained comprehensive tobacco control efforts are needed to further reduce tobacco use prevalence.  Likewise, ongoing and effective surveillance and evaluation of tobacco use among youth are essential for monitoring whether declines noted among middle school students continue as they age into high school. To view this report click here.

Ads urge grocery stores to give up cigarettes
To coincide with Kick Butts Day, the New York State Department of Health and other New York anti-smoking advocates recently sponsored statewide full-page newspaper advertisements asking grocery stores to consider not selling cigarettes.  The advocates maintain that banning cigarettes from grocery store sales would limit children’s exposure to cigarette marketing.  The advertisements ask stores to follow the lead of local grocery chain Wegman’s, which stopped selling cigarettes in February.  Other small local chains in New York have also ceased tobacco sales, but the movement has generally not caught on among the larger chains. Find out more here.

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