Studying gay teens’ smoking

COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio health officials will use a federal grant aimed at preventing tobacco use among minorities to study why gay and lesbian teenagers smoke at a higher rate than their straight peers.

Health officials are allocating $60,000 to identify the smoking habits of those teens and develop a tobacco-prevention campaign for them.

“The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community has a smoking rate at about 40 [percent] to 60 percent, which is higher than the national rate,” Ohio Department of Health spokesman Kristopher Weiss said.

While national statistics show smoking rates among gays and lesbians are nearly double that of the rest of the country, no Ohio-specific health data exist.

As part of the Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay and Transgender Community Youth and Young Adults Anti-Tobacco Social Marketing Project, officials will form focus groups among youths ages 12 through 20 at an LBGT center in Columbus. Angie Wellman, director of the Kaleidoscope Youth Center, a drop-in venue for LBGT youths here, estimated that 60 percent to 70 percent of the center’s teen visitors smoke regularly.

Ohio joins a growing national effort to curb the number of gays and lesbians who light up. As of August 2006, 20 states said they were addressing the problem, according to a census conducted by the National LGBT Tobacco Control Network, a Boston-based nonprofit group.

Gay teens are more susceptible to adopting a nicotine habit as a coping mechanism when they come out to family and friends, said the network’s director, Scout.