Study: More than 25% of teens have smoked cigar in past year

By DAVID BROWN
WASHINGTON POST

Slightly more than a quarter of American highschool students have
smoked all or part of a cigar in the last year, and about 2.6 percent
reported having smoked at least 50.

That is the main finding of the first rigorous study of cigar use among
U.S. teenagers, which was released Thursday by the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.

Whether it represents a change in high schoolers' behavior from
previous eras is unknown.

The survey found that 37 percent of teenage boys had smoked a cigar in
the previous year, compared with 16 percent of girls.

Cigarette smokers and smokeless tobacco users were three times more
likely to have tried a cigar as their peers who didn't use those other
tobacco products.

White male teenagers were the biggest users of cigars, with 42 percent
reporting having tried at least one.

Researchers associated with the study expressed surprise at the results,
and suggested it may signal an ominous trend.

"We were expecting a report in the single digits," said Michael p
Eriksen, director of the CDC's Office on Smolu~ng and Health.

"But given the magnitude of it more than 25 percent we can't help
think that it's reflecting some recent uptake in cigar smoking."

Nancy Kaufman, an epidemiologist at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
who conducted the survey, said she believes teenage cigar use is the
product of ad campaigns whose purpose is to glamorize a product
previously associated with middleaged and older men.

"There is an interesting phenomenon in which cigars are being used as
props for other highfashion products, such as designer sunglasses and
designer jeans," she said.

"What we see is a whole retooling of a consumer product to a new
market."

Norman Sharp, president of the Cigar Association of America, said the
manufacturers and importers his organization represents "don't condone
teenagers smoking cigars.

"Our products are made for adults, and if there is a problem we want to
cooperate in resolving it."

Cigar sales in the United States have risen over the last three years,
and now number about 3 billion a year. That total, however, is about
onethird of the number o{cigars sold in 1964, the year the surgeon
general of the United States announced the dangers of smoking.

The hazards of cigars are less well understood than the hazards of
cigarettes.

However, data recently compiled by the National Cancer Institute suggest
that men who smoke one to two cigars a day for about 20 years have about
six times the risk of developing larynx cancer as do nonsmokers.

For cancer of the pharynx, the risk is about fourfold, and for cancer
of the esophagus, about twofold.

Kaufman said epidemiologists now need to study the "pattern" of cigar
use how much is smoked, and in what social situations teenagers try or
consume cigars.

She is particularly interested to know how widespread is the practice of
hollowing out short cigars and replacing the tobacco flller with
marijuana. Smoke from the resulting "blunts" is inhaled.