Cigs Call to Kill: As students are called to join the increasingly “cool” trend of smoking cigarettes for aesthetics, experts warn against the harm cigarettes continue to cause teens

With a Marlboro cigarette luxuriously dangling out of the corner of her mouth, senior Jen Hart* feels like a thirty-something businesswoman on a New York City penthouse balcony celebrating closing a $1 million deal. 

Wisps of smoke swirl into her nose reeking of sweet nicotine and deliver a buzz almost strong enough to make her forget where she really is: alone on a dim patio outside a house party among wilting potted plants and crushed Bud Light cans. 

Hart smokes cigarettes solo on mostly the outskirts of parties or on her balcony after her parents are asleep. Either way, she feels cooler than an 18-year-old high school student.

“When I’m holding a cig, I feel sophisticated,” Hart said. “Like one of those pretty women in an old vintage ad.”

As studies show and students report that smoking cigarettes is increasingly “cool” again, experts warn against the harm cigarettes continue to cause teens.

Teen smoking nationally dropped to an all-time low of 2% in 2021 — down from nearly 23% in 2000 — but it’s been rising since, according to the University of Michigan. In an Instagram poll of 278 students, one in four reported that purely the aesthetic of cigarettes is cool, and 11% reported being current cigarette users. In comparison, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest annual report, 4% of high schoolers nationally smoke cigarettes. 

Executive Director of Kansas’s American Lung Association Linda Crider is greatly concerned by this trend, which she believes is sparked by the popularity of teen vaping in the past five years. 

“Teens are drawn to shiny things, which vaping was,” Crider said. “Vapes could be hidden, they were that cool new thing. We have found that teens that were vaping have now turned to cigarette smoking because [vaping] was really a launching pad.”

Both Hart and senior Holly Gates* started off as solely vape users before picking up cigarettes. In an Instagram poll of 302 students, 44% now believe that smoking cigarettes is cooler than vaping. Gates believes that she wouldn’t have been able to handle the sheer nicotine punch of cigarettes — one hit being fifteen times more nicotine than one hit of an E-cigarette — if she hadn’t become numb to puffs of her Vuse vape that “barely” get her buzzed anymore.

“Whether it’s a combustible cigarette or the vaporized kind of cartridge and E-cigarettes, both contain nicotine,” Crider said. “And at the end of the day, nicotine is still highly addictive, causing lung cancer and lung disease.”

Hart and some students who smoke cigarettes buy them with fake IDs, while others are supplied by older friends. Gates smoked her first cigarette at a local college tailgate in February — now she chain smokes five or six cigarettes every few weekends. All of her college friends smoke, and now some of her high school ones do too.

“In elementary school, I’d be like, ‘Who would ever do that?’” Gates said. “But cigarettes are good vibes. They’re very Lana Del Rey core. Plus I’ve been vaping for so long that they don’t get me buzzed anymore, and cigarettes always make me tingly and dizzy in a good way. I do feel cool.”

Cigarettes remain prevalent in pop culture, with 88% of 2020’s top-grossing movies including tobacco depictions, according to the National Opinion Research Center. Singer Lana Del Rey smokes cigarettes while on stage during concerts and posts photos with cigarettes for her 9.1 million Instagram followers. Other influencers like celebrities Miley Cyrus and Bella Hadid also flaunt their smoking habits publically. Teens who are exposed to cigarettes on social media are twice as likely to start smoking, according to Truth Initiative.

The CDC predicts that 5.6 million of today’s Americans younger than 18 will die early from a smoking-related illness if cigarette smoking among youth continues at the current rate.

“Am I concerned for myself?” Hart said. “Maybe a little. I think there’s more pertinent things to worry about than smoking though. Like gun violence and world hunger.”

Science teacher Susan Hallstrom is much more concerned about teen cigarette use — both her dad and grandpa passed away from lung cancer caused by smoking.

“When I was little, my little brothers and I all begged my father to quit,” Hallstrom said. “After he was diagnosed, he told us, ‘I always meant to stop, I just always thought there would be time. And now I’m out of time.’”

One of her first memories is sitting with her grandpa as he coughed and asking him what was wrong. He told 9-year-old Hallstrom that cigarettes were killing him.

“He lifted up his shirt and showed me these big, ugly-looking scars from lung surgery covering his chest that hadn’t healed well,” Hallstrom said. “And then he died a few weeks later.”

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death, according to the CDC, as more than 70 of the 7000 chemicals in cigarettes are known to cause cancer and damage alveoli found in the lungs.

In an Instagram poll of 195 students, 46% reported that themselves or a family member have been negatively affected by cigarette smoking. Sophomore Clara Breneman is against smoking because her grandparents on both her mom and dad’s side passed away from emphysema and lung cancer.

“Anytime my parents see people smoking out somewhere in public, they lecture about how much pain they went through with hospice and all the health care with their own parents and how I shouldn’t smoke,” Breneman said.

East parent Jenn Miller was close with her grandma growing up, loving to practice cooking and discuss English literature together on the weekends. But lunch dates soon turned to hospital visits when Miller’s grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer when Miller was 19. Six months later, her grandma passed away.

“It’s a horrible way to watch somebody die,” Miller said. “She lost a tremendous amount of weight. My father and my brother were smokers, and the one thing that she asked of them on her deathbed was to quit smoking.”

Cigarettes can spark emotional damage too. Sophomore Becca James* has increased tension in her relationship with her father due to his refusal to quit smoking her whole life. He started in college and still goes on smoke breaks about twice an hour due to cravings. James vows to never pick up a cigarette herself.

“The ‘cool cigarette aesthetic’  makes me cringe,” James said. “I’m almost pained when I’m out in public and my friends start smoking cigarettes. It’s not a ‘Lana Del Rey aesthetic.’ Smoking is one of the most damaging things you can do to your lungs. I know I can’t make [my friends] understand when they don’t know anyone who has been seriously affected by cigarettes.”

Senior David Kelly* doesn’t have family members affected by cigarettes and has smoked Marlboros nearly every weekend since freshman year. He acknowledges that his habit is “kind of nasty” but still doesn’t care — especially since he only lights up while drunk.

“If I was sober, the consequences would be a lot more prevalent, but drunk cigs don’t count,” Kelly said. “And vaping is a more douche-y thing now compared to cigs. I’ve definitely noticed more high schoolers smoking now than when I started. A lot of people seem willing to try it, it’s a cooler thing.”

SRO Officer Tony Woolen has seen signs of increased cigarette smoking at East.

“Last week, somebody smelled smoke in one of the bathrooms, and administration found ashes inside,” Woolen said. “In another situation, somebody found cigarette butts in the toilets.”

Crider is concerned that students are starting to smoke at a younger age due to social media and negative influences from older students. Indian Hills Middle School seventh-grader Brett Ward* smokes cigarettes and reports being influenced by older students.

“At the skate park and stuff, everybody [is] smoking cigarettes,” Ward said. 

Companies use social media and marketing directed towards teens to hook new customers by romanticizing cigarettes, according to the CDC. The 2022 Federal Cigarette Report reveals that total advertising and promotion funds spent by cigarette companies has increased from $7.84 to $8.06 billion in one year. National cigarette sales increased for the first time in 20 years during 2020, according to the Federal Trade Commission. 

“On social media, the consequences of cigarette use are not conveyed,” Crider said. “There’s no education going along with the sales pitches.”

She and Hallstrom agree that teen smoking needs to be denormalized through education in order to prevent a new generation of addiction. According to the CDC, nearly nine out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes daily first tried smoking by age 18. Crider’s advice to young people is to not start smoking — but for those who already have, contact trusted adults and visit lung.org for help quitting.

“When I became a parent and teacher, I understood that some young people make poor decisions because of a lack of mental maturity,” Hallstrom said. “But as you age, you realize how superficial being ‘cool’ is. That cool factor is nothing, it truly isn’t important. I wish kids would focus more on the type of human being they are than the superficial message that they send by smoking.”

The American Lung Association has free quitting resources including the Tobacco QuitLine at 1-800-LUNG-USA and information at lung.org/quit-smoking.