Lesbian and bisexual teen girls are more vulnerable to tobacco use and cigarette marketing than their heterosexual counterparts, a new U.S. study says.
Nearly 40 per cent of more than 6,200 lesbian and bisexual teen girls in the study reported smoking weekly, compared with only 6 per cent of heterosexual girls.
The findings, published in the April issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, were gleaned from an ongoing survey of more than 16,000 adolescent boys and girls aged 12 to 17 across the United States.
It also found that the lesbian and bisexual girls were 60 per cent more willing than heterosexual girls to wear promotional merchandise from tobacco makers, such as hats, T-shirts and bags.
The frequency of smoking and high scores on the tobacco dependence index among this high-risk group suggested they were habitual, rather than casual smokers.
Dr. C. Bryan Austin, the lead author of the study and a researcher at Children's Hospital Boston told globeandmail.com that societal prejudices against homosexuality likely drive the girls to take up the habit.
"The tobacco industry has long promoted the idea that smoking makes you cool and independent," said Dr. Austin, pointing to the prevalence of smoking among protagonists in Hollywood films.
These notions of smoking can encourage young girls who feel ostracized by the mainstream to take up the habit, she said.
But Dr. Austin also noted that lesbian and bisexual girls may also be harder to reach with anti-smoking programs than heterosexuals.
"Many of these girls perceive school as a hostile environment," Dr., Austin said. "
"If they feel alienated by their peers because of their sexual orientation, or feel uncomfortable or even unsafe taking part in school activities, then after-school prevention and cessation program may be missing the mark with these girls," she said.
Marketing strategies targeting groups that are prone to puff are also having an impact.
Although it is illegal in North America to promote tobacco products to minors, cigarettes and merchandise bearing the manufacturer's logo are widely marketed and wind up in the hands of millions of teens each year.
In 1992, tobacco giant Philip Morris became the first tobacco company to buy ads in a gay men' magazine, called Genre, but the ads created a stir.
Philip Morris denied targeting "specific groups in society," but a probe of internal tobacco company documents found that a marketing consultant hired in the early '90s had urged the company to advertise its Benson & Hedges cigarette brand in gay publications.
In its efforts to increase slumping cigarette sales in the mid-1990s, R.J. Reynolds -– producer of four of the 10 top-selling brands in the U.S., namely Camel, Winston, Salem and Doral — created a campaign targeting the gay community and the homeless in San Francisco.
The company referred to the project, called ‘Subculture urban marketing,' by the distasteful acronym Project SCUM, according to documents outlining R.J. Reynolds' strategy.
Both sets of documents were made public by the big tobacco companies as part of a combined 1998 litigation settlement with several states' attorneys-general.
