POVERTY AND SMOKING: A DEADLY MIX

The television advertisements depicting human lungs dripping tar have had
an effect. Despite the best efforts of tobacco companies, people in nearly
all household income groups are smoking less than they used to. That is the
good news. The less good news is that while people in nearly all
socio-economic groups are giving up smoking, the poor are giving up much
less than the rich and the poorest households are not giving up at all.

A new study by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling shows
that over the 20 years to 1994 the rates of smoking dropped by a half in
the richest 10 per cent of households. But they dropped by only one-tenth
in the poorest 20 per cent of housholds and not at all in the poorest 10
per cent. The study also found people were more likely to smoke if they
lived alone, were single parents, were unemployed, or were over 65. Young
people were twice as likely to smoke if they lived in a low-income rather
than a high-income household. Teenagers generally smoked less than those in
their early 20s.

The findings are important if, in some cases, unsurprising. One would
expect 24-year-olds to smoke more than teenagers because they are less
likely to be living at home and subject to daily parental supervision. One
would expect unemployed people to smoke more, not only because they have
more time on their hands, but because they are not subject to the daily
climate of disapproval of smoking that exists in many of today's
workplaces. One would expect those over 65 to smoke more, in part because
they are less likely to be in the workforce and in part because they may
have been smoking for many years and find it too difficult to give up (or
don't want to).

But why should the anti-smoking messages of the past two decades have had
so little impact on the poorest households? Perhaps this is not surprising
either, given that many in the categories most likely to smoke are also
likely to be in the poorest households. Other studies have found people of
low socio-economic status are more likely to have lifestyle risk factors
such as smoking, heavy drinking, obesity and a lack of exercise. Sadly, the
poorest people in society often either have such low self-esteem they think
they do not deserve good health, or feel too powerless to care.

One thing seems clear: smoking is no longer a status symbol, as it was 20
years ago. If there is one reason for this it is because of the banning of
advertisements, which usually depicted smoking as glamorous. The
anti-smoking drive has had bipartisan support, and has worked. One response
by the tobacco companies has been to introduce large "budget" packs of
cigarettes that contain slightly less tobacco per cigarette but are
significantly cheaper - because they are taxed by weight, not the number of
cigarettes per packet.

According to the Quit Campaign, reforming the system of taxing tobacco
could by itself, over the next two years, deter an estimated 100,000
children from taking up smoking. It might seem unkind to raise the price of
one of the few pleasures poor people have. But, given that 18,000
Australians die of tobacco-related diseases every year, it is surely more
kind than encouraging them to kill themselves.