City kids swapping cigarettes for cigars

Smoking cigarettes has become a drag — but stogies are now all the rage in the Big Apple, where cigar use among kids under the age of 17 has doubled between 2001 and 2013, according to a new study.

Tali Elfassy and her colleagues at the New York City Health Department surveyed a representative sample of public-high-school students from across the city twice a year — every two years — as they studied the trends in youth smoking behaviors within the context of the city’s comprehensive tobacco-control program.

While cigarette smoking declined by 53 percent between 2001 and 2013, cigar smoking shot up from 22.2 percent to 45.9 percent.

Mark Francis, a 21-year-old security guard from Queens, thinks the desire to be “cool” is to blame.

“They do it because they want to imitate the life of movie stars [and] what they see on TV,” he explained. “They see people on Wall Street smoking it so it gives them that image of a high roller . . . Cigar equals money.”

A 19-year-old cigarette smoker from Flushing — who wished to be quoted anonymously because “he looks older” and “never gets carded” — told The Post he thinks some kids are smoking stogies because they feel like it’s healthier.

“They probably believe that by not inhaling, the risk of lung cancer goes down,” he said. “Maybe they quit but they still want to feel that pull in their mouth — to have that feeling of smoking but not inhaling.”

But some New Yorkers think kids have more illicit reasons for buying cigars.

“They use it for smoking weed — that’s the biggest factor why they buy it,” said Corey Kemp, 22, of Flushing. “The survey is correct, but not for the right reason.”

Despite having data incapable of measuring how marijuana use would affect cigar smoking, the DOH spokesman said marijuana use between 2001 and 2013 remained stable.

Michael Andrews, a 50-year-old trucker, isn’t buying the excuse.

“It’s not like [kids] are smoking more cigars,” he explained. “They smoke marijuana . . . and they need the tobacco leaves to roll it up. I know that for a fact.”

Kemp added, “You see them buying Dutch Masters, Philly Blunt, BluntVille — but they are not smoking it. They dump [the tobacco] out and fill [the cigar] with weed and smoke it. I see it happening all the time.”

Resource: http://nypost.com/2015/06/13/city-kids-swapping-cigarettes-for-cigars/