--- title: Casual Smoking Is Increasing Among Young American Women description: Casual smoking is increasing among young American woman, and it's particularly prevalent among 18- to 20-year-olds canonical: https://time.com/3960040/light-smoking-women/ author: Tanya Basu article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-07-16T17:51:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:58:33.125Z article:section: Health og:title: 'Very Light' Smoking Is Increasing In Young American Women og:description: Casual smoking is increasing among young American woman, and it's particularly prevalent among 18- to 20-year-olds og:url: https://time.com/3960040/light-smoking-women/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d4de43775255f0f/69885b338e060131ca4616b5/young-women-light-casual-smoking.jpg?branch=production&width=495&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 495 og:image:height: 278 og:image:alt: 177264975 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Very Light' Smoking Is Increasing In Young American Women twitter:description: Casual smoking is increasing among young American woman, and it's particularly prevalent among 18- to 20-year-olds twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6d4de43775255f0f/69885b338e060131ca4616b5/young-women-light-casual-smoking.jpg?branch=production&width=495&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 'Very Light' Smoking Is Increasing Among Young American Women > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=44d34414-85df-429f-a24d-378e03231f52&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Up in Smoke: The Rise and Fall of Big Tobacco [Watch (HLS stream): Up in Smoke: The Rise and Fall of Big Tobacco](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/WPuXPUG8.m3u8) (1:37)  _Published 2014-07-16. "More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette" is just one of the phrases we don't hear anymore - here's a quick look at America's complicated relationship with the addictive habit._  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Jul 16, 2015 5:51 PM UTC  A young woman smoking A young woman smoking Artem Furman / Getty Images  by [Tanya Basu](https://time.com/author/tanya-basu/)  ## Tanya Basu Jul 16, 2015 5:51 PM UTC For a large swath of young American women, light smoking is growing in popularity, according to a new study. In new [research](http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2015/14%5F0547.htm) published in _Preventing Chronic Disease_, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin were intrigued by other studies that noted a spike in casual smoking in recent years. To find out more about very light smokers, they analyzed a sample of 9,789 women between ages 18 and 25 from the 2011 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The researchers asked the women if they had smoked part or all of a cigarette in the past 30 days; those who said they had were classified as current smokers, while those who hadn’t, but had smoked previously, were considered “former” smokers. While heavy smoking—a pack a day—has decreased in the U.S., the researchers found that 27% of all people in the study—and 62% of the current smokers—identified as very light smokers, a habit of five or fewer cigarettes a day. It also can mean skipping smoking some days, then picking up a cigarette every so often. In fact, this kind of casual smoking—what many people often refer to as “only smoking when drunk”—has become predominant, particularly because of its perceived lack of health effects, the study authors note. Many light smokers consider smoking “only once in a while” as not harmful; while they understood smoking to be risky, the authors write, they did not consider the risk as high as non-smokers. Interestingly, a specific group of women emerged as “light” and “very light” smokers: 18- to 20-year-old single women with some college education. The research team thinks young women entering adulthood are at particular risk for smoking, perhaps because young adulthood is a time of stress and anxiety and because smoking fewer cigarettes is cheaper than a heavier habit. But even a very light habit isn’t safe, the authors warn. Research has indicated repeatedly that picking up even one cigarette puts a woman at increased risk for health problems. The fact that the women who are smoking lightly tend to be young and of childbearing age is especially worrisome, they note, since smoking can not only affect conceiving and fertility but can also put women at higher risk for disorders such as cancer of the cervix. Beyond pregnancy effects, very light smokers are susceptible to the same issues that affect heavier smokers, including depression, psychological distress, and dependence on other controlled substances, the study found. And while the research team did not correlate smoking with binge drinking, they found that heavy and light smokers were similar in their patterns of past alcohol bingeing. “Social features of college life, including weekend partying, may promote smoking at a very light level among college women,” the authors write. “Emotional distress and multiple substance misuse may serve to both initiate and maintain very light smoking.” The authors write that anti-smoking campaigns—which tend to focus on heavier smokers—still haven’t yet reduced the “cool” factor associated with taking a drag, even an occasional one. “Advertising aimed at women attempts to associate smoking with independence, attractiveness, and sophistication,” the study notes. “To meet the challenge of the tobacco industry, smoking intervention programs and policies directed at emerging-adult women need to be based on an understanding of the diverse characteristics…associated with very light smoking in this population.” ## Transcript This night work's kinda rough, isn't it? That's right. But a Camel's always a pleasure. [ MUSIC ] Yes, in a cigarette, it's the tobacco that counts. And Lucky Strike means prime tobacco. Like a lot of his teammates, and so many big league players, Jim gets more pleasure from Camels than from any other cigarette. [ MUSIC ] You'll be interested to know how the doctor's of America answered that question. Tens of thousands of doctors. Doctors in all parts of the country. In every state of the union. According to the survey, more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette. 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