News from the Noteworthy from Tobacco Free Communities: DOS

LGBTQIA+ Tobacco Use Disproportionate

Otsego Pride Alliance’s Pridefest on Oneonta’s Main Street, June 1, celebrated LGBTQIA+ communities to the fullest, with vibrant and sparkling colors, costumes, music, and people. The weather joined in the atmosphere, with plenty of sunshine, a light breeze and no rain in sight. At 4:20 p.m., the revelry paused for about half an hour so that Otsego Pride Alliance founder and Vice President Kirsten Eggers and Diane Foster could exchange wedding vows, a first in the 10 years of celebrating pride in Otsego County. It does not get much more celebratory than that.

We at Tobacco Free Communities: Delaware, Otsego & Schoharie were proud to be part of Otsego County’s Pridefest, where we shared our free educational resources and gave away our objectively-speaking pretty pens and Reality Check wrist bands. But observing and celebrating Pride is for all of June, not just one day. We feel it is vital to keep informing LGBTQIA+ members about their disproportionately high rates of commercial tobacco use and health disparities compared to their heterosexual and cisgender counterparts—as well as the growing number of excellent health and cessation resources and organizations to reduce them.

As with Black Americans, the tobacco industry has aggressively marketed its products, especially menthol cigarettes, to the LGBTQIA+ community, resulting in the disproportionate rates of tobacco use. Tobacco companies largely ignored the LGBTQIA+ community until around the mid-1980s, when they began to realize they could be a lucrative niche market. The AIDS activist group ACT-UP called for a high-profile boycott of Marlboro cigarettes in 1990, a favorite brand among gay men, because the tobacco industry continued to fund anti-gay politicians such as Senator Jesse Helms.

Although Phillip Morris did not stop funding Helms, it did begin funding AIDS organizations and having cigarette ads published in LGB magazines. In the mid-1990s, the tobacco industry developed Project Sub-Cultural Urban Marketing, its plan to sell Camel cigarettes to gay men in San Francisco. Sub-cultures were defined as “alternative lifestyles,” “rebellious Gen Xers,” and “street people.”

By the early 2000s, tobacco companies were sponsoring and advertising their products at Pride events and queer bars, with slogans such as “take pride in your flavor” over rainbow-designed cigarette packs. By the 2010s, images of drag queens and transpeople were appearing in ads, and the tobacco industry was supporting civil rights cases and pro-LGBT congressional legislation.

With advancements in LGBTQIA+ rights (as well as setbacks), efforts have been made to gather data on LGBTQIA+ health, which spotlight the concerning high disparities in tobacco use among members versus heterosexual/cisgender persons. The National LGBT Cancer Network reports the following recent data on commercial tobacco use:

• In 2021, 27.4% of LGBT adults vs. 18.4% HC adults
• In 2022, 21.5% of queer high schoolers vs. 14.1% HC high schoolers
• 7.6% of queer middle schoolers vs. 3.6% HC middle schoolers
• 16.6% of transgender high schoolers vs. 10.2% HC high schoolers
• 9.1 transgender middle schoolers vs. 3.8% HC middle schoolers

Recent data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control show LGB adults have more risk factors for cardiovascular (heart and blood vessel) disease than their heterosexual/straight counterparts and 45,000 LGBTQ+ people die from cancer each year. Cigarette smoking can cause cancer, especially lung cancer, and cardiovascular diseases, and affects every organ in the body. The CDC also reports, “People living with HIV, including those who have access to freely available and well-organized HIV treatment, now lose more years of life from smoking than from HIV.”

The good news is, more organizations, such as the LGBT Cancer Network, are offering excellent, accessible, and affordable health and cessation resources specifically for local LGBTQIA+ members: The New York State Smokers’ Quitline at nysmokefree.com, including nysmokefree.com/Menthol/LGBTQIA2S+communities and DroptheVape texting program (text: DropTheVape to 88709); and cessation resources from Bassett Healthcare Network—contact Mindy Robinson, research coordinator and liaison at (607) 547-6707.

Other great resources: The National LGBT Cancer Network, https://cancer-network.org/outlast-tobacco/; Truth Initiative, especially for LGBTQIA+ youth and young adults, at truthinitiative.org; and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, www.cdc.gov/tobacco-health-equity.

Jennifer Hill is community engagement coordinator for Tobacco-Free Communities: Delaware, Otsego & Schoharie.