A currently airing anti-smoking spot in California shows a young woman who says she’s not REALLY a smoker because she only smokes occasionally, like when she goes out with friends. It’s not like she goes through a pack a day or more… If she smoked that much, then she’d consider herself a smoker. Then, naturally, the voiceover comes on at the end and says, addressing those in the audience who also consider themselves occasional smokers, “you’re a smoker!”.
The point of the commercial is clearly that there’s no safe level of tobacco consumption. But is there absolutely no corellation between the amount smoked and the risk run by the smoker? It almost seems as if the ads want to convince us that smoking is so bad for you that it’s impossible to draw any such relation…one cigarette a week is as bad as two packs a day. I don’t doubt that even one weekly cigarette can pose a danger. But wouldn’t it be far less than the risk run by a chain-smoker? And if that’s true, is the anti-smoking campaign hindering its message by refusing to acknowledge varying degrees of risk?
Whether or not they are hindering their message is up to you, but I doubt they would ever actually talk about the numbers in the way you imagine. You see, 90% of people who get lung cancer are smokers, but the statistic you rarely hear about is that only 10% of lifetime smokers get lung cancer. So while there may be no level of consumption that is free of risk, the risk itself depends on how you figure it.
Lies, damnable lies, and statistics…
Cite for cancer statistic
Yes, there is a correlation. I’ve seen some smoking-related diseases discussed in terms of “pack-years,” which if I recall is defined as a pack a day for a year. So smoking one pack a day for ten years is the same number of pack-years as smoking two packs a day for five years, or half a pack a day for twenty years. So while it might be true to say there’s no “safe” level of tobacco use, different levels entail correspondingly different amounts of risk.
So it sounds as if the public health campaigns are oversimplifying the situation to a considerable extent. I can see why that is done, since any other approach would be seen as acquiescing to some degree of tobacco use. But in my opinion that approach carries with it a certain amount of fudging the truth, which usually isn’t helpful.
Gary T is totally right about “pack-years.” Your risk of smoking-related complications, in general, goes up with the number of pack-years you’ve inhaled. It’s not a linear relationship. After around twenty pack-years your risk of things like lung cancer goes way up.
As far as I know, there are some complications of smoking that are serious risks regardless of pack-years, such as heart attacks and setting yourself on fire.
So, in response to the OP, I’d say that your common sense is right in telling you that someone who smokes a couple in the bar on Saturday right is at a much lower risk than someone who sucks down two packs a day.