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Why Do Gays Smoke So Much
Slate ^ | August 4, 2003 | Steven E. Landsburg

Posted on 08/05/2003 8:33:43 AM PDT by Theophilus

Why Do Gays Smoke So Much?
By Steven E. Landsburg
Posted Monday, August 4, 2003, at 11:27 AM PT

Illustration by Mark Alan Stamaty
I've just learned from NPR's All Things Considered that in California, gay men and lesbians are 70 percent more likely to smoke than the general population. In a sterling example of why I try not to listen to too much NPR, reporter Sarah Varney immediately segued into the perceived need for more anti-smoking ads targeted specifically at gays.

In other words, Varney implicitly assumes that gays are either too stupid to have gotten the message that smoking is bad for you or too irrational to have modified their behavior accordingly. A more inquisitive reporter might instead have raised the obvious question: What good reasons might gays have to smoke more than other people?

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In four minutes of air time, the closest Varney came to addressing that question was to suggest that for gays, stepping outside for a cigarette can be a good way to meet people—as if the desire to meet people somehow differentiates gays from straights. At the same time, she managed to overlook the blindingly obvious: Gays are disproportionately childless, and childless people are more likely to smoke.

As a matter of fact, childless households (whether gay or straight) spend, on average, 56 percent more on cigarettes and alcohol than their childbearing neighbors. (Among households where the parents have some education, the discrepancy is even larger.) Nor is there anything mysterious about why. First, parents have extra reasons to live long and stay healthy, both so they can be there when their kids need them and so they can enjoy the company of their grandchildren. Second, parents have extra expenses—starting with diapers and continuing through college tuition—that leave less disposable income for cigarettes. Third, a lot of parents don't like the idea of smoking in front of their children.

That alone might be enough to explain why perfectly rational gays (along with perfectly rational childless straights) smoke more than their neighbors. But family size is not the only dimension in which gays—particularly those gays who identify themselves as such to pollsters—are different from straights. The openly gay face some social opprobrium. So do smokers. Maybe it's not too surprising, then, that out-of-the-closet gays and out-of-the-closet smokers are disproportionately the same people. (You can imagine the possibilities: "Now that my parents have learned to deal with my gayness, I might as well tell them I smoke.")

More speculatively, one might well imagine that nicotine, which is popular largely as a stress reliever, might be more useful in a life punctuated by discrimination, familial disapproval, and plain old cruelty. Or even that the people who lead such lives might—perfectly rationally—care less than the rest of us about how long their lives will last. I'm not sure how to test those hypotheses, and I'm not sure how plausible they are, but surely they're both more plausible and more respectful than the suggestion that gays need to see specifically gay-oriented advertising before they can understand that smoking is bad for them.

If you doubt that rational responses are relevant to addictive behaviors like smoking, consider this: MIT professor Jonathan Gruber and University of California, Berkeley, professor Botond Koszegi have studied the way smokers respond to cigarette tax increases. Here's what they find: As soon as a tax increase is announced, but before it goes into effect, smokers do two things: They stockpile cigarettes, and they cut back on smoking. The anticipation of higher prices in the future inspires smokers to adjust their habits in the present, both so their stockpiles can grow and so they can accustom themselves to smoking less. In other words, smokers respond exactly as you'd expect rational beings to respond.

Why, then, should gay smokers be the unique exception to the rule that smokers behave rationally? The answer is that there is no answer. Generally speaking, people have good reasons for the things they do, whether or not those reasons are visible to the folks at National Public Radio.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: gay; homosexual; homosexuals; lesbian; npr; pufflist; queer; smoking; tobacco; wodlist
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Comment #61 Removed by Moderator

To: LexBaird
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes not.

That's what Monica said.

62 posted on 08/05/2003 9:32:03 AM PDT by presidio9 (RUN AL, RUN!!!)
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To: Texaggie79

63 posted on 08/05/2003 9:39:52 AM PDT by BrooklynGOP
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To: Theophilus
This should be used by those opposing anti smoking measures to point out that such measures discriminate against homosexuals.
64 posted on 08/05/2003 9:58:54 AM PDT by xp38
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To: Wolfie; *Wod_list; jmc813
["gay men and lesbians are 70 percent more likely to smoke than the general population."]

Nicotine causes homosexuality.

LOL! WOD ping.

65 posted on 08/05/2003 10:02:07 AM PDT by MrLeRoy (The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. - Jefferson)
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To: Theophilus; All
Why Do Gays Smoke So Much

Not enough KY!

66 posted on 08/05/2003 10:02:49 AM PDT by biblewonk (Spose to be a Chrisssssssstian)
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To: Just another Joe
Joe, seems like the author already hit on it, gays are disportionately childless and therefore more apt to smoke. Maybe the answer isn't to ban smoking, but to ban condoms so more people have children and therefore are less likely to smoke due to having less "disposable" income? Who the hell knows.
67 posted on 08/05/2003 10:09:59 AM PDT by lockjaw02 ("The phenomenon of corruption is like the garbage. It has to be removed daily." -Ignacio)
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To: Wolfie; vin-one; WindMinstrel; philman_36; Beach_Babe; jenny65; AUgrad; Xenalyte; Bill D. Berger; ..
WOD Ping
68 posted on 08/05/2003 10:10:57 AM PDT by jmc813 (Check out the FR Big Brother 4 thread! http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/943368/posts)
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To: Theophilus
When you gotta death wish, you cover all the bases.
69 posted on 08/05/2003 10:11:41 AM PDT by Redleg Duke (Stir the pot...don't let anything settle to the bottom where the lawyers can feed off of it!)
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To: Wolfie
Nicotine causes homosexuality.

Thay iths not tho.

70 posted on 08/05/2003 10:26:39 AM PDT by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: Tacis
Smoke this, a$$hole.
71 posted on 08/05/2003 10:29:19 AM PDT by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: metesky
KA-BOOM!!!

Send him a message, George!

72 posted on 08/05/2003 11:52:03 AM PDT by headsonpikes
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To: Just another Joe
I've got no clue what he is talking about. Some of the most rabid anti-smoker gnatzies I know personally are gay. and some of the highly compensated porfessional antis are as well.
73 posted on 08/05/2003 12:00:41 PM PDT by Gabz (anti-smokers - personification of everything wrong in this country.)
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To: headsonpikes; Tacis
Tacis loves the sound of one hand clapping in his little self-contained round pound.
74 posted on 08/05/2003 12:40:16 PM PDT by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: Phantom Lord
Because in England cigarettes are called FAGS!

& "Butts" in the States, they can't resist


75 posted on 08/05/2003 1:14:33 PM PDT by putupon (What would Ronald Reagan drive?)
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To: Theophilus
stepping outside for a cigarette can be a good way to meet people

I wonder if Varney harbors some hope that someday a nice gay man will give her a chance to change his mind since straight guys are unsuitable for nice liberal girls.

76 posted on 08/05/2003 2:55:30 PM PDT by Theophilus (Save little liberals - Stop Abortion!!!)
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To: Just another Joe
Also, does this reasoning work for heterosexual smokers?

Don't expect any rational replies on this thread. Most of the respondants are sitting around doing their best "Beavis and Butthead" impersonations, "Huh huh huh. Pole smokers. Huh huh."

Incidentally, I think the link to children has a lot to do with it. I have no kids and smoke. The majority of my friends also have no kids and they all smoke. The few friends I have with children have all quit.

77 posted on 08/05/2003 3:13:04 PM PDT by Drew68
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