lifestyles
Nonsmokers may be the majority. But many KU smokers aren't going to give into the peer pressure to quit.
By Jenny Brannan
Kansan staff writer
Graphic by Noah Musser
Don't tell Tommy Hardin, St. Louis senior, that smoking causes cancer. Don't tell him that it is an unattractive habit. And don't tell him that there will be more public bans on smoking.
He already knows.
Hardin, a smoker since 1988, said he would not be pressured into the increasing majority of nonsmokers — at least not during college. And he refuses to go to restaurants and bars where he can't smoke.
"If it got to the point where the doctor told me if I smoked another cigarette I would die tomorrow, then I might quit," Hardin said.
Even though the student-smoker population has decreased from previous years, 10 percent of KU students still smoke, said Charles Yockey, chief of staff at Watkins Health Center.
This number is lower than the national average, he said, but it is still higher than the average for the socioeconomic groups represented at the University. It has been proven that people in higher socioeconomic groups are less likely to smoke, he said.
According to the 1993 edition of the Statistical Abstract of the United States, 71 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 25 have tried smoking and 32 percent are current users.
"If you were a student health service worker, you'd think 50 percent of this campus smoked." Yockev said.
Smokers come into Watkins more often than nonsmokers because they are more susceptible to upper respiratory illnesses, he said.
Even though college students are well-educated on issues such as alcohol use and smoking, Yockey said that knowledge wasn't always reflected in their behavior.
"You have to look at the whole package and say every time you light up it's bad for you," Yockey said. "You're not dumb or illiterate. Would you intentionally put something other than gasoline in your gas tank?"
Yockey said the habit almost always started in high school from peer pressure and then carried over into college. Very few students started smoking after they got to college, and if they did, it was because they needed a stimulant to keep them awake.
Because of the nicotine, cigarettes are as addicting as any other drug. Yockey said alcoholics find it easier to quit drinking than to quit smoking.
"Everytime you quit smoking, you're still a smoker mentally," Yockey said. "It's always an option to have a cigarette."
While many students decided to try quitting, many more didn't think quitting was worth the work — at least not during college.
"They're telling us everything is bad for us, so let's smoke and enjoy it," said Kristin Zvirgdzins. St. Louis sophomore.
She said that ultraviolet rays, exhaust fumes and food preservatives could also cause cancer, so there was no way to avoid exposure to health risks. Smoking just happened to be a health risk she enjoyed.
Zvigridding' parents used to pay her $20 a week not to smoke - or so they thought.
"I'd use the money to buy cigarettes," she said. "I'd come home and say 'No, I don't smoke.'"
She said smoking was habitual for college students because it was directly related to alcohol use.
"I think college students smoke because of stress," Zvirgzdins said. "But also, cigarettes and beer go hand in hand."
Laura Crisis, Leawood sophomore, said she thought smoking had increased among members of her generation compared to members of her parents' generation. She said that most of her friends' parents were avid nonsmokers.
"The generation ahead of us is appalled," Criss said.
Crisis, a smoker for two years, said she would not smoke while walking on campus because she thought it was tacky, yet she said it should be accepted everywhere for those who choose to do it. She said she knew the majority did not share her views.
Criss said she didn't feel the habit was worse than any other, despite the new social pull away from smoking.
"I think by the year 2000 it will be like farting in public to light up a cigarette," she said.
Sarah Fox, Tulsa, Okla., sophomore and a nonsmoker, said she thought college students smoked to relax at social gatherings.
"I've had adults tell me they'd rather have me drink than smoke," she said. "But that's not fair because drinking is just as bad for you."
"They smoke because they go out to a party, and they're just sitting around," she said. "If you're not talking to anyone at a certain time, you can smoke, and you won't feel like an idiot with nothing to do."
A large part of the draw toward smoking for college students involved freedom. Whether it's good for them, students are going to smoke because they have the right.
"We know it's wrong to do, and we always want to do what we can't," said Allison Saylor. Toneka sophomore.
Many smokers said they planned to quit when they graduated and entered the work force or started to raise a family. Few students viewed smoking as a lifelong habit.
Findings from a 1992 study conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services indicate:
About 1.7 million youths had smoked an entire cigarette by their 12th birthday.
Among 16 to 18 year olds, about 60 percent had experimented with smoking or were smokers.
About three out of four teenagers who were current smokers had made at least one serious attempt to quit.
Yockey said there was hope for students who wanted to quit. He said that the physical withdrawal symptoms were done 48 to 72 hours after quitting, and if smokers quit before the age of 30, their lungs would repair themselves within six weeks to the level of someone who had never smoked.
Emily Ausbrook, Hartford, Conn., sophomore, said she thought the college generation was at an age where they were questioning the world around them and experimenting with new things. The addiction in college is more of a coping mechanism or an emotional addiction than a physical one, she said.
Ausbrook said that, even though she still smoked, the health consequences scared her because she got sick much more because of her habit.
"When you're young, it doesn't hit you like it does when you are older," Ausbrook said. "I've gotten a good glimpse of what smoking can really do to you. Right now, most of my friends can bounce back without any health problems, so why would they quit?"
SMOKING
music
The Boulder band is returning to Lawrence Liberty Hall and a soldout crowd. But be warned. They've been known to prompt calls to the Lawrence Fire Department.
From left to right, Sean Kelly is a vocalist and the guitarist for the San Antonio Nichols plays the drums, A Laughlin plays the keyboard and Andy Sheldon is a bassist and vocalist.
By Ian Ritter Special to the Kansan
"The fire department came, and no one took them seriously because they thought they were dressed up," "Samples" guitarist and singer Sean Kelly said of the concert when a band member's shoe flew into a sprinkler head and set off the sprinkler system in what is now the River Valley Music Cafe.
The band, from Boulder, Colo., is making their second appearance Thursday at Liberty Hall. The concert is soldout.
Fire sprinklers drenched the crowd when the Samples played at the former bar Benchwarmers. 1601 W.23rd St.
The group is touring after the release of their fifth album, "Autopilot," which is named after their rigorous tour last year.
"We were just completely fried, doing whatever our tour manager told us...running on autopilot," said bass player Andy Sheldon in a press release.
The Samples started their current tour on Sept. 15 in Salt Lake City. Since then, they've been playing four or five shows a week.
"That's reduced," Kelly said. "We did a five-week tour earlier this spring that only had two days off."
The band, which also includes Jeep MacNichol on drums and Al Laughlin on keyboards and vocals, has a sound that is a cross between the Police, reggae and "nouveau hippie bands."
After seven years of
touring, the Samples' popularity has increased. The group has released five albums and sold 100,000 copies.
"There's such a preconception of being in a band just to be big," Kelly said. "If the success level grows, it's good. But playing music is what we're here for."
The band appreciates the success, Kelly said, but that isn't why they are playing.
Kelly said that touring for seven years provided a more stable success than bands that became superstars after putting out only one album.
"A lot of those bands don't go into complete success," Kelly said. "The longevity of those bands has never been proven."
Kelly said Neil Young was a great example of an artist who had endured many years on the road and experimented with numerous styles of music, not worrying about the number of albums he sold or how much money he made.
After Lawrence, the band is traveling to St. Louis to play for another soldout audience and will continue to tour for five more weeks. Kelly said that the band listened to tapes of crickets while on the road.
shouldn't be listening to us."
"I can't wait till I am 40 — if I live that long — and all of those albums will make up a photo album of different periods of my life," Kelly said "There's nothing wrong with being prolific. If people think our albums sound the same, they probably
"Anything that cleans the palate because there's so much music going on," he said.
Kelly said that Lawrence was usually considered a first stop by the band because it's close to Boulder. He said that should make it a good show.
"Look out for the sprinkler systems," Kelly said.
news of the weird
LEAD STORY
Among recent suggestions by municipal governments to restrict teen-age "cruising" in public places at night was one by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The New York Times reported in August that Florida is considering installing low-pressure sodium street lamps to get kids off the streets because they render caucasians' complexions a "sickly" color and make acne go roguesque.
Within a six-week span, police in Rupert, Idaho, and Weatherford, Texas, handled cases in which men broke into a church for burglary or vandalism, were attracted to the office photocopier and left behind copies of their faces.
The winner of a "worst photograph" award sponsored by the Daily Telegraph newspaper in York, England, in April was Tom Pemberton, 74, who submitted a blurred photo of his left ear, taken when he accidentally aimed the camera backward.
CHUTZPAH
In February Theora Simmons, 37, was arrested and charged with stealing vehicles and office furniture from a Claremore, Okla., General Motors dealership. According to police, Simmons had taken the firm's pictures off the walls, leaving Post-It notes in their place that read "You have nice taste."
LEAST COMPETENT PEOPLE
Bank robbers continue to be ignorant of the chemical dye-packs that tellers place in holdup money bags. Michael David Harris, 39, was arrested in August outside a Nations Bank in Washington, D.C., after he was spotted by a passerby with smoke coming out of his pants (into which he had stuffed the money bag).
In June, the Supreme Court of Canada turned down the appeal of an Edmonton therapist who had been convicted for tricking a mother into allowing her 15-year-old daughter to submit to sex with him for four years. The girl was having behavioral problems, which the doctor diagnosed as caused by the "gamma profile" (which is nonexistent). The doctor's lengthy process of therapy included binding the girl and engaging in a variety of sadosmaochistic sex acts with her. When she complained to her mother, the mother reassured her, saying "He's saving you from your gamma profile."
I DON'T THINK SO
Donald Stewart Boyne, 61, and Kenneth Allen Bentley, 39, were arrested in Tavares, Fla., in August and charged with lewd and lascivious behavior. According to police, Boyne said he had gotten in the van merely to show Bentley how his new penile implant worked.