Are you a smoker if you smoke socially?

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Over the years doctors have been so concerned about the majority of nicotine addicted habitual daily smokers that not much time or research has been given to so called social smokers. Social smoker often consider themselves non-smokers and will often tell their doctor that they don’t smoke. Social smokers can range from the person who smokes an occasional cigar at a special event to the person who smokes one or two each evening when he goes out. I was told by a friend that they didn’t classify themselves as a smoker because they never bought a pack for themselves!

I suspect that most social smokers believe that they are putting themselves at a minimal risk. However recent research and the evidence of the reduction in acute heart attacks in those countries or towns that have already instituted smoking bans as I describe about the cayman smoking ban here strongly suggest that even a small amount of smoke can be important in producing a heart attack.

If non-smokers benefit with a noticeable reduction in heart attacks from not having smoke in enclosed public spaces then surely the occasional smoker must be much more at risk than they envisage. If breathing in some of others smoke is bad – then breathing all of your own must be worse. But many do not consider themselves smokers means that they often do not tell their physician that they smoke and and so do not benefit from advice about the often underestimated dangers.