LGBT Smoking Report Cause for Concern

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the country, accounting for 393,000 deaths a year. A new report on LGBT smoking has been released that shows that LGBT people suffer more from this deadly addiction. Researchers combed through more than 40 separate analyses to determine that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are more likely to use tobacco than straight people. A dozen or so states have collected sexual orientation information on routine health surveys. However, only 6 states have published reports on tobacco use by sexual orientation: Arizona, California, Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Oregon and Washington together. All 6 of these states found significantly elevated smoking rates in the LGBT community.

The statistics are alarming. Gay men are nearly two and a half times more likely to develop a smoking habit than straight men. Lesbians are twice as likely compared to straight women, and people who are bisexual appear to have the highest risk of all - all of the state surveys that collected data on bisexuals found smoking rates higher than 30 percent, and ranging up to a high of 39.1 percent. At 30.7 percent, the transgender smoking prevalence was very close to the overall LGBT rate of 30.4 percent.

LGBT youth are a vulnerable population. Bisexual youth seem to be at highest risk compared with both heterosexual and homosexual youth. Researchers found that bisexual boys were twice as likely to smoke regularly as either gay or straight boys. Compared to heterosexuals, “mostly heterosexual” girls were 2.5 times more likely, and lesbian/bisexual girls were an alarming 9.7 times more likely to smoke at least weekly. Boys identified as “mostly heterosexual” were 2.5 times more likely than heterosexual boys to smoke at least weekly, but gay/bisexual boys were no more likely to smoke than heterosexual boys.

The report analyzed reasons for the smoking rate disparity. One reason is the stress of discrimination. Actual or even perceived stigma causes stress, and research has shown that smoking rates, as well as other negative health behaviors and outcomes, are higher in groups that experience high levels of stress. The bar culture might also be to blame. Because there is a biological and behavioral link between drinking and smoking, it is likely that the bar culture would have contributed to elevated smoking rates. Access to healthcare is another issue. LGBT people have less access to health care and the smoking cessation tools often necessary to kick the habit. Another reason is tobacco company targetting of the LGBT community. The tobacco industry was one of the first to develop marketing materials specifically targeting the LGBT community, and it has over time cynically reaped the benefits of the attention paid to a group that had been largely ignored by mainstream advertisers. Finally, some of our community leaders have ignored the problem. Despite the impact of tobacco use on the health and well-being of the LGBT community, many LGBT organizations do not seem to view tobacco control as a relevant issue and some noted in studies that combating smoking could be bad for an organization’s bank account. There are so many reasons for LGBT smoking disparities. The issue is very complex.

The study is a good look at current knowledge of LGBT smoking. We should all be very concerned with the elevated rates of smoking and take the figures as a call to action. We need to tackle the driving forces of smoking in the community. One day perhaps we can look at smoking in the LGBT community as an unfortunate but limited chapter in our group history.

Stay in Touch!

Keep track of the work Butt Out is doing by going to our website (www.butt-out.org/), friending us on Facebook (butt-outsanfrancisco) or by connecting with us on Twitter (twitter.com/buttoutsf).Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.

Smoking and A Frustrated Four Faced Liar

Childhood sweethearts Greg and Molly are new to New York. They left their quiet corner of America for the Big Apple to start a new life. They hope that life becomes more exciting and interesting. One night they decide to go to a hip Greenwich Village bar called the Four Faced Liar. They don't smoke in the bar - smoking is banned in bars in New York. They sip their drinks. They meet a couple, Bridget and her best friend Trip. Sparks fly immediately between Molly and Bridget. The two couples start hanging out after meeting in the bar. Molly and Bridget develop a steamy relationship challenging Molly's relationship with Greg. And so goes the drama of the Frameline movie The Four-Faced Liar.

Imagine if Greg and Molly could smoke in the bar. Molly lights up and sucks on the noxious death sticks while simultaneously nursing her beer. How gross! I can only imagine what smoke tastes like with the sudsy beverage. I don't know about you but I don't like to mix the taste of ashtrays with my beverages. I can never understand why smokers like to smoke while drinking and eating. Doesn't it kill the flavor of the food?

Anyway, picture Molly cocking her head back and blowing smoke rings into the air. Greg doesn't find it cool - he can't wait for Molly to quit smoking. He can already picture the walls of their new apartment turning yellow. Echh!

Molly thinks she is sexy smoking. That is the furthest from the truth to Bridget. She and Trip are sitting at a nearby table drinking jack and cokes. The smoke wafts their way. That's one way to kill a buzz. Bridget feels her personal space, not to mention her health, being violated. Bridget thinks Molly is kind of cute but she would never approach her. Bridget has a strict no smoker policy for dating.

Bridget tells Trip to move to another table.

Bridget spies another cute woman - a non-smoker - exchanging witty banter with her friend. Bridget decides to approach the girl. She takes a deep swig from her drink for added courage and motions Trip to walk to the two women. Bridget and the woman immediately hit it off. They exchange numbers and agree to go on a date. One date becomes two dates becomes moving in on the third date becomes marriage in Massachusetts two months later. Bridget has found her life mate.

Molly and Greg meanwhile start a life in New York. They eventually marry too. Life moves on day to day. In the back of her mind Molly has this nagging feeling that life is missing something, that Greg might not be everything for her. She can't pin down what she is missing. Is this all there is?

Greg still wants Molly to quit smoking. Her worries about both of their healths. Can't she just quit!

What a different movie The Four-Faced Liar becomes when smoking is allowed in the bar! Smoking turns people off and harms their health. Unlike the claims of some people, smoking bans in bars adds to the atmosphere in the establishment and promotes business. Nonsmokers can enjoy their time in the establishments without the interference and hazard of smoke. Smoking bans can even promote love!

Have fun at Frameline and look out for Butt Out's PSAs. We hope you find someone special at any of the film festival's smoke free events. Enjoy!

Stay in Touch!

Keep track of the work Butt Out is doing by going to our website (www.butt-out.org/), friending us on Facebook (butt-outsanfrancisco) or by connecting with us on Twitter (twitter.com/buttoutsf).Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.

Brian Davis Goes 'Out in the Bay'

Last Thursday Butt Out's Brian Davis had an exciting interview on "Out in the Bay," an LGBT themed show on KALW 91.7 FM. You can listen to the show on www.kalw.org. He talked about the problem of LGBT smoking, how the tobacco companies target the LGBT community, the special impact of smoking on LGBT youth and the work that Butt Out is doing to fight the tobacco companies in the community.

Brian entered the interview with a lot of passion. Brian is personally motivated to do anti-tobacco advocacy. He has asthma and chafed as a child at having to inhale the smoke from his father's cigarettes. He was also pained to see his father try over and over again to quit his two pack a day habit. Brian had a lot to offer on the interview that came from a personal place.

Brian highlighted a number of powerful considerations in the fight against big tobacco.

Smoking is a Highly Prevalent Killer in the LGBT Community

LGBT people smoke more than straight people - two times more. Gay men smoke 50% more than straight men in California. Lesbians smoke three times more than straight women. LGBT people also start smoking younger than straight people, at ages 14 or 15. Some research indicates that it is significantly harder to quit smoking if a person starts smoking before age 18. The smoking rates are hard to hear considering that tobacco kills more people than murder, suicide, traffic accidents, drugs and alcohol combined! LGBT people are disproportionately counted in the 400,000 tobacco deaths every year in the United States.

Smoking Hits LGBT Youth Hard

Brian discussed the troubling problem of LGBT youth smoking. Fully 43.7% of LGBT youth smoke in California - nearly half of the LGBT youth population! A 2006 University of Minnesota study highlighted some of the reasons why. Many youth suffered trauma, abuse and ostracism from their homes and communities for being gay. Smoking is a way to escape the pain and make friends. "Do you have a light" is a conversation starter for the young LGBT person searching for community. Brian emphasized that the the community needs to take steps to change its face with respect to smoking so that LGBT youth have different models to emulate in their behavior. Brian pointed to Butt Out's Grim Reaper event as an example of the community coming together against tobacco. The Grim Reaper event was a bit of street theater in the Castro where the tobacco "Grim Reaper" was chased out of the neighborhood. The LGBT community needs to do more to steer LGBT youth down the right path.

The Tobacco Companies Target the LGBT Community

While still reticent to embrace a highly stigmatized community, tobacco companies have targeted the LGBT community in an effort to turn our community's fierce brand loyalty into equally fierce addiction. The tobacco companies have used advertising as a weapon in their arsenal. Genre magazine in 1992 published the first pro-gay tobacco ad. Since then the tobacco companies have put out ads purporting to support gay rights even as they push cigarettes on gay people. One recent ad in fact equated the freedom to marry with the freedom to inhale tobacco smoke. Brian expressed his shock at the demeaning of our struggle for equality as well as at the hypocrisy of an industry that supports conservative politicians as well as LGBT organizations.

Butt Out Works with LGBT Organizations to Combat Big Tobacco

Brian pointed out that tobacco companies try to garner support in the community by giving money to LGBT organizations. They try to leverage the good will of the organizations to make themselves look good. The support is inch deep - they spend more money advertising the fact that they support LGBT organizations than actually funding LGBT organizations.

Butt Out is inoculating the LGBT community against tobacco company machinations by getting organizations to spurn tobacco funding and adopt tobacco-free funding policies. The work is hard to do in these difficult funding times. Brian pointed out that companies can see the justice of Butt Out's position by considering whether they would take money from a company whose product gave AIDS to half its consumers. An organization should consider taking tobacco money as unconscionable as taking money from the hypothetical company.

Butt Out can point to some successes in its work. 20 Bay Area based LGBT organizations have tobacco-free policies, including the National Center for Lesbian Rights and San Francisco Pride. All LGBT politicians in the Bay Area such as Mark Leno have pledged not to accept campaign donations from tobacco companies. Butt Out continues to raise consciousness in community organizations and add to the community of groups rejecting tobacco funding.

Stay in Touch!

Stay tuned to this blog for more news of Butt Out community activism, interviews and events.

Keep track of the work Butt Out is doing by going to our website (www.butt-out.org/), friending us on Facebook (butt-outsanfrancisco) or by connecting with us on Twitter (twitter.com/buttoutsf).

Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.

Second-hand smoking ordinance hearing next Monday, February 22, 1pm at City Hall!

I hate going to outdoor dining areas and having my dinner interrupted by a neighbor's smoke. Marlboro Reds just don't go with filet mignon - or anything else for that matter. A night at the movies is similarly dampened when I have to breathe noxious fumes from someone upstream in the waiting line. I want to unleash some silver screen super hero whoop-ass when the odor hits my olfactory senses. Second hand smoke is a nuisance and a threat to my health. It is a public health concern that all San Franciscans are challenged with.

Educate yourself on the ordinance below and if you feel like making your voice heard, come down to the hearing and comment.

Legislation that would expand the non-smoking areas in San Francisco will be discussed by the Board of Supervisors Land Use and Economic Development Committee on February 22. The ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Eric Mar, would represent a far reaching effort to reduce second hand smoke in public accommodations. Amendments to address business concerns, particularly bar owner concerns, are expected to be voted on. If the ordinance passes, San Francisco will become one of 18 Bay Area cities that protect citizens from second hand smoke hazards in public areas. San Francisco will also follow a nationwide trend. As of April 2009, there were 37 states with some form of smoking ban.

Secondhand smoke is the combination of smoke given off by the burning end of a tobacco product and the smoke exhaled by the smoker. Research has generated evidence that secondhand smoke causes the same problems as direct smoking. Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke. In the United States, secondhand smoke is thought to cause about 46,000 heart disease deaths each year. Extensive scientific research has shown that there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Locally, secondhand smoke represents dangers to patrons. For example, secondhand smoke levels from outdoor dining areas at two unnamed cafes in North Beach are considered dangerous by the EPA (see picture).

The proposed ordinance would update Article 19F of the San Francisco Health Code, the landmark legislation adopted in 1994 that protects residents and visitors from second hand smoke. The ordinance bans smoking in a number of venues. Some of the areas where the ban would take effect are dining areas, movie lines and building entrances. San Francisco's ordinance would break new ground in the effort to reduce second hand smoke among citizens.

Some businesses argue that the smoking ban will harm their business by turning off patrons who want to enjoy some poisonous fumes with their dinner, drink, or what have you. These fears are unfounded. More patrons will flock to businesses once they know that the establishment will be safe and pleasing without cigarette smoke. A 2006 review by the U.S. Surgeon General found that smoking bans were unlikely to harm businesses in practice, and that many restaurants and bars might see increased business. According to the 2004 Zagat survey, which polled nearly 30,000 New York City restaurant patrons, respondents said by a margin of almost 6 to 1 that they eat out more often now because of the city's smoke-free policy. San Francisco's businesses as well as patrons can gain from passage of the second hand smoke ordinance.

Stay tuned for updates on the ordinance. There is a lot to learn and gain!

Keep track of the work Butt Out is doing by going to our website (www.butt-out.org/), friending us on Facebook (butt-outsanfrancisco) or by connecting with us on Twitter (twitter.com/buttoutsf).Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.

Starting the Habit and Lesbian Sexuality

“I started when I was just a kid. I saw Marlene Dietrich on the big screen sensuously sucking on a long necked cigarette and I knew I wanted to be like her. I wanted to be cool and sexy. Smoking became a part of my identity as a dyke and a lesbian.”
-Mickey*

Lesbians, like gay people in general, can wrap up their sexuality with smoking. Smoking to the young lesbian is a statement of sexiness and rebellion – part of being cool as a gay person. Other reasons for starting smoking include the social stress of being gay, direct targeting by the tobacco companies, higher incidence of drug and alcohol abuse and centralizing community around bars and clubs. Given all of that, it is no surprise that lesbians in California smoke three times more than other women.

It is one thing to hear about statistics. The problem becomes real when you hear about women’s experiences directly. I went out into the community to hear from lesbians who smoked or had smoked. I wanted to get a sense of why they started smoking.

Look at Amber. She started smoking at a relatively young age:

“I started smoking at the same time I came out and started frequenting gay bars here in San Francisco. That was forty years ago and I smoked up until about twenty years ago and finally quit for good. I started smoking actually because it was the only way I could tolerate hanging out in smoky bars and because, back then, it was considered "cool" and sophisticated to do so.”

Amber quit smoking when her longtime partner got cancer from smoking and died from the illness. Amber is now very sensitive to cigarette smoke and has compromised lung function. She is very happy to be free of smoking in her life.

Amber’s story is an interesting one. She started smoking to fit in with the other women in the bars. The lesbian community seems to gravitate around the bars. Drinking and smoking goes together. It is such a shame that lesbians in San Francisco lack community spaces that don’t encourage addictive behaviors.

Tracy is another woman who shared her story with me. She had her first smoke when she was 16. She visited a beach town with some friends of hers. She was tormented about being gay and made a last-ditch attempt at playing straight. She made out with a guy one night and woke up feeling terrible. The next morning she went to a gas station and saw some girls.

“I saw these two girls, super pretty, super light and carefree, seemingly comfortable in their own skin, around my age. I assumed they were straight. They were buying cigs from some old guy who was getting a kick out of them and surely knew they were underage. Anyways, for some reason, something clicked in me and I was like, I want to be those (presumably straight) girls. I bought a pack and forced myself to smoke one after another. I got sick! But, I still kept smoking.”

Tracy smoked for 12 more years and tried everything to break herself of the habit, including running marathons and backpacking. She couldn’t quit even with severe asthma! She finally broke free three years ago when her partner told her she would stop breathing periodically while sleeping. Tracy did not want to die because of her smoking.

Tracy’s smoking reverberates with a lot of people. Internalized homophobia gnaws at the insides of a lot of gay people. Lesbians who hate their budding identities can easily get sucked into self-destructive behaviors like smoking. Hopefully smoking will become less appealing to young lesbians as societal acceptance of homosexuality increases.

Lesbians pick up smoking for a myriad reasons, often related to their sexual identity. The stories above represent just a few of the many experiences other women have had with smoking. With time, it is this writer’s dream that lesbians can come of age loving themselves and detesting cigarettes as a way to express who they are.

Do you have a story you’d like to share about starting smoking? Did your smoking habit have something to do with your sexuality? Share your experiences by making a comment!

Butt Out is a project of Breathe California, funded by the San Francisco Tobacco Free Project, which works to get tobacco money out of LGBT community organizations in San Francisco. We also educate the public about the hazards of smoking and about smoking cessation.

Visit Butt-Out online at http://www.butt-out.org/

*The names of the women who shared their stories have been changed to preserve their privacy.