Teens, Sex, and Cigarettes
We teach schoolchildren about sex and supply
free condoms. So why don't we take the same approach to smoking?
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Imagine for a moment that we taught children about smoking the same way we
teach them about sex. For the first few weeks, we'd discuss the mechanics: the
various kinds of seeds, growing conditions, aging processes, and the like. Then
we'd move onto personal issues. Some people, we'd explain, like cigarettes,
others cigars. Some even chew their tobacco.
"That's gross," one sixth-grader would inevitably say.
"Now, class," we'd admonish, "we need to be accepting of all
kinds of tobacco lifestyles."
Later on, we'd discuss more complex topics: filters
or not; the propriety of doing it in public; techniques for making smoke rings.
Oh, and at the very end of the semester, we'd spend an hour on abstinence.
Of course, this will never happen. When it comes to tobacco, we are
prohibitionists. We lecture kids on its evils and prohibit sales to youths. We
banned tobacco ads from television long ago; newspapers and magazines rarely
run them. Even filmmakers find themselves under enormous pressure not to permit
on-screen smoking if children might be watching. All of this is
done under the theory that kids simply can't be trusted to make up their
own minds. See it in a movie, argue anti-smoking advocates, and kids will be
lured into smoking. A cigarette machine in a bowling alley will impel them to
try a puff. As far as children are concerned, we have driven tobacco
underground.
You may have noticed, on the other hand, that we are not prohibitionists
when it comes to sex. Instead, we're almost libertines. We teach about it in
school and talk about it incessantly. Far from banning it from television, sex
is ever-present, not only in ads but also in the shows kids watch every day.
Just last month, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found the frequency of sex
scenes on television had nearly doubled since 1998.
Here's a small illustration of the difference between the prohibitionists
and libertines: Many school systems in Massachusetts make free condoms
available to teens, with advocates arguing that the effect is not to encourage
sexual activity but simply to ensure that if it occurs, disease and pregnancy
are averted. Meanwhile, anti-tobacco activists are aghast at the idea of
handing out free cigarette samples to teens and young adults, because, they
say, they will inevitably cause them to smoke.
Clearly, both propositions cannot be true.
In fact, it appears, the libertines have got it right.
Despite our wanton ways - and the deplorable examples provided by role
models such as President Clinton - teen sexual activity has been decreasing.
That's according to surveys conducted every two years by the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. The percentage of
And how about that prohibitionist approach to
tobacco? On its face, it, too, seems successful. The same CDC surveys found
that the number of
But wait. Those declines occurred during a time
when the average inflation-adjusted price of tobacco doubled. A number of
economic analyses conclude that a 10 percent price increase should cut teen
smoking by about 7 percent.
Do the math. The price increases alone should have pushed down teen smoking
to around 40 percent. Instead, it remains higher. Why?
Think back to the original era of Prohibition, where, it appears, drinking (and
drunkenness) actually climbed. Making something illegal can have the perverse
effect of making it more attractive, a kind of forbidden fruit. It was true
then; it's likely true now.
So perhaps the lesson is that we should regard tobacco more like sex. That
doesn't necessarily mean school nurses should hand out cigarettes along with
condoms. But it does mean treating kids as more than
compliant automatons who bend willy-nilly to the lure of advertisers and
actors. Like adults, young people can think for themselves.
Thomas M. Keane Jr. is a partner in a private equity fund and former 