Activists target smoking as new threat to gay health
Gay people's use of tobacco has long been overshadowed by efforts to combat AIDS. Now advocates and health professionals are addressing the issue.
By LISA GREENE
Published August 23, 2003
[Times photo: Lara Cerri]
Michael De Jesus, 53, lights a cigarette recently at the Suncoast Resort Hotel tiki bar in St. Petersburg, which caters to gays and lesbians. "I have a lot of straight friends, and they like to smoke just as much as I do," he said.
ST. PETERSBURG - Partners Eric Buchanan and Jimmy Medcalf stood outside the Suncoast Resort Hotel one recent afternoon sharing a smoke break.
Medcalf, 43, smokes two packs a day. Buchanan, 34, a little more. Most of their gay friends smoke, too.
The couple and their friends are no coincidence. A UCLA survey of 55,000 people found that gays and lesbians were 70 percent more likely to smoke than heterosexuals, and other studies show a similar disparity.
Nobody's sure exactly why, although there are plenty of theories. Maybe it's because they are trying to fit in. Or maybe they are trying to rebel.
But gay advocacy groups and health professionals are trying to do something about it.
"Smoking kills more gays than AIDS, hate crimes, suicide and breast cancer combined, but it's only recently that we've begun to address this," said Kathleen DeBold, executive director of the Mautner Project, a national lesbian health group.
In June, the California health department launched its first statewide antismoking campaign aimed at gays.
National health groups, such as the American Legacy Foundation, also have programs aimed at gays. There's even a "Gay American Smoke Out" that began in Seattle and has spread to other cities.
But until recently, smoking got little attention as a problem for gays and lesbians. Health advocates have focused much more on HIV.
"Tobacco really wasn't on the radar screen of the gay and lesbian community," said Colleen Stevens, chief of the tobacco education media campaign for the California Department of Health Services.
There are still few programs in Florida. The Mautner Project hopes to soon launch a community program to educate activists about tobacco in South Florida, an effort that could spread to Tampa Bay.
Estimates for smoking among gay teens ranged from 38 to 59 percent, compared to 28 to 35 percent of all teens, according to a federal analysis of other studies. The same analysis found most studies also showed that more gay adults smoke.
Florida State University student Dano Beck, 20, is a member of American Legacy's youth advisory panel. Beck is gay but has never smoked.
Part of the problem, Beck said, is that gays face extra stress, especially as teenagers grappling with sexuality, acceptance and discrimination. Some see cigarettes as a way of taking the edge off the stress.
"I think it's youth feeling extreme isolation, depression or wanting to rebel," Beck said. "It can be seen as a way to fit in, or to feel macho."
Smoking as a way to medicate stress - however unwise that might be - makes sense to Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida, a Tampa-based social justice group.
"When you're living in a society that does not recognize your relationships ... there's a constant stress," said Smith, who is gay and quit smoking eight years ago. "There's a certain amount of one's mental energy, just like with any other kind of oppression, that is taken up by attempting to clear obstacles."
Another factor: gay bars.
"We tend to party more, and drinking and smoking tend to go together," said Buchanan, who was visiting for the afternoon at the Suncoast Resort, which caters to gays and lesbians.
At the resort last week, smoke drifted from a trio of tables. But not everyone agreed with the studies.
"I have a lot of straight friends, and they like to smoke just as much as I do," said Michael DeJesus, 53.
Dave Lindsay, 38, finally quit a few years ago. But tobacco's macho marketing is effective: He joked that he's still in love with the Marlboro Man.
"I smoked to look cool," he said. "I started smoking to look older."
Often in those settings, "smoking is part of a general cultural environment," said David Phelps, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Foundation of South Florida, based in Miami.
It's Phelps' group that is likely to approve a grant for the Mautner Project to combat smoking among South Florida gays.
Gay advocates also pointed to clever marketing as a factor. Beck said industry ads often send deceptive messages, equating cigarettes with equality and tobacco companies with sensitivity.
A set of internal R.J. Reynolds documents that became public in 2001 has become infamous among gay advocates. The documents detailed efforts to increase sales with "subculture urban marketing" to gays and homeless people.
The plan's name: Project Scum.
The documents were offensive and "antithetical to how we operate the company," said Seth Moskowitz, a spokesman for R.J. Reynolds. But he defended placing cigarette ads in gay publications and marketing to gay adults.
"It's paternalistic to try to protect a subgroup of people who don't need to be protected because they are fully capable of deciding" whether to smoke, he said.
Health experts say they need to be more sophisticated about marketing as well.
That's why campaigns aimed at gays can help more of them stop smoking. Imagine being a gay smoker at a quitting support group, Beck said.
"If you want to express that it's hard to quit when your boyfriend just broke up with you," he said, "you might want to bring up issues, and you think there's not support."
General antismoking campaigns may go unheeded among gays as just one more message from disapproving America: Don't be yourself, don't be gay and don't smoke.
That's why the Mautner Project has focused on more positive messages, such as "lesbians prefer smoke-free kisses," DeBold said.
"People are judging them for being gay, and they don't want people judging them for being smokers," she said.
Lyndon Haviland, chief operating officer of American Legacy, said gay activists' efforts to focus national attention on AIDS helped transform how health advocates work on other issues.
"You don't have that same advocacy voice that has rallied around the tobacco issue in the community," she said.
In California, the health department's campaign has co-opted the language of activism.
One of its ads features angry protesters bearing signs: "The gay community faces discrimination, but not from cancer, heart disease or emphysema."
Eventually, such messages can hit home.
"I used to smoke," Lindsay said. "I don't anymore. It's bad for you."
