WASHINGTON, July 24 (UPI) -- More than two-thirds of young female smokers want to quit, but only a very small number -- 3 percent -- actually succeed in doing so, leaving public health experts wondering how to best combat this growing problem.
That finding comes from a new report released by the American Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization established in 1999 in Washington, D.C., as a result of the settlement between the tobacco industry and 46 states. ALF is funded primarily by the historic 1998 tobacco settlement, which called for the tobacco industry to pay $368.5 billion over a 25-year period to state governments. The lawsuit was brought by states attorneys to get the tobacco industry to pay for smoking-related medical expenses accrued by states.
"I was surprised by, most of all, the percentage of young people who think they can quit pretty readily," Cheryl Healton, president and chief executive officer of ALF and a co-author on the report, told United Press International. "It's a very small success rate. They have a high optimism that they can quit."
The 3 percent who did quit were able to abstain from cigarettes for at least one year. Survey data also showed 83 percent thought they could quit anytime and 60 percent had tried to quit at least once in 2002. The survey, which looked at young women ages 16 to 24, showed 25 percent of them smoked in 2002 and 65 percent reported they were considering quitting in the next six months.
Among those who attempted to quit, 25 percent of the young women smokers succeeded in abstaining from cigarettes for more than one week, but less than one month; 28 percent were able to quit from one to six months before lighting up again and 6 percent did not smoke for more than six months, but then relapsed.
What these young women do not realize, Healton said, is "they grossly underestimate the addictiveness of nicotine. They grossly underestimate the health effects."
ALF announced these new survey findings along with the launch of a new partnership with an Avon program called "mark." This collaboration with the corporate beauty giant Avon will use young women participating in the mark program to get the anti-tobacco message out to female smokers, Healton explained.
Just like traditional Avon ladies, young women participating in Avon's mark program will go door to door selling cosmetics and jewelry and informing potential customers about the dangers of smoking.
"We're making them anti-tobacco ambassadors," Healton said of the new generation of Avon saleswomen. "It's the first time this anti-smoking message has been embedded in a beauty product."
Stanton A. Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and director of the university's Center for Tobacco Control and Research Education, said it is about time an organization used the tobacco company's tactics of product tie-ins to public messages.
"It's exactly the kind of product tie-ins and marketing stuff tobacco companies have used for a long time so I think it's a great idea and I think it's going to bring a lot of power to the (anti-tobacco) message," Glantz told UPI.
Cigarettes have had a strong presence in the fashion industry, women's magazines and movies, he added, creating a great deal of social and cultural pressure on young women. "Women have been a key target for tobacco industry for twenty to thirty years," Glantz said.
Even the most recent report from the Surgeon General's Office on Women and Smoking, which came out in 2001, cited the tobacco industry's heavy marketing to young women and its use of messages touting female social and economic independence to promote smoking.
In 1968, the report stated, tobacco behemoth Phillip Morris started marketing Virginia Slims cigarettes, linking their advertising slogan, "You've come a long way, Baby!" with the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The slogan changed to "It's a woman's thing" in the mid-1990s and more recently became "Find your voice." As the surgeon general's report states, however, "The underlying message of these campaigns has been that smoking is related to women's freedom, emancipation, and empowerment."
As to the numbers of women who attempt to quit, Glantz said they "are consistent with everything else we know."
Alyssa Easton, a lead health scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, agreed. "This is very similar to what we see nationally for women ... and men overall," Easton told UPI. "We're excited to see this report by Legacy."
CDC data show smoking was rare among women in the early 20th century, but that changed in the 1920s when women wanted to show off their independence by lighting up a cigarette. After that, rates went up with about the same number of women and men smoking by the 1960s.
Smoking rates then started to drop from 33.9 percent in 1965 to 22 percent in 1998, according to the CDC. The bulk of this decline occurred from 1974 to 1990, with very little decline between 1992 and 1998. Easton said it is unclear why smoking rates among women tapered off that way.
When asked whether there is a particular age when an individual is most susceptible to addiction, Easton said, "Once someone is addicted to smoking, it's extremely difficult at any age" to stop. The CDC does not know, she said, how many cigarettes or smoking occurrences it takes to develop an addiction. "Smoking is difficult for anyone to quit, whether they're male or female."
