Banning smoking in areas outside bars could help
stamp out "social smoking", or people who smoke only when they are
drinking, say health researchers at Otago University.
They carried
out in-depth interviews in 2011 with 13 "social smokers," aged between
19 and 25, and all but one of them supported such a ban, according to
the research published in the journal Tobacco Control.
International evidence indicates that, while smoking has decreased overall, social smoking has increased among young adults.
Those in the study found it very difficult to reconcile their stated identity as non-smokers ... who smoke.
They rationalised the non-smoker definition by saying they only smoked when they were drinking.
They described smoking and drinking as going "hand in hand".
More
fundamentally, alcohol enabled them to absolve themselves of
responsibility for their actions, which they inevitably regretted.
Drinking
thus supported and even induced "binge smoking" and yet also distanced
them from this behaviour, enabling them to maintain their "non-smoker"
persona, the authors said.
"Some nights I can smoke 14/15 ciggies
or a pack while I'm drinking but I can never do that without alcohol,"
one respondent said.
All but one of those in the survey said they
supported the idea of smoke-free areas outside bars to help decouple
smoking and drinking.
"Introducing smokefree outdoors bars could
reduce social smoking by removing cues that stimulate this behaviour and
changing the environment that facilitates it," said lead author,
Professor Janet Hoek.
Other Otago University researchers have
suggested alcohol laws should be strengthened to help people give up
smoking, as heavy drinking made it harder for people to quit smoking.
NZN