While overall smoking rates have declined in recent years, smoking rates remain higher among specific subpopulations, including the LGBTQ+ community. These differences are in large part due to the tobacco industry’s targeted marketing through advertising, price discounting and other strategies.[i] Every year the tobacco industry spends $9.1 billion in the United States marketing their deadly and addictive products.[ii]
Individuals who are lesbian, gay, or bisexual use tobacco at higher rates than those who are straight and those who are transgender use tobacco at higher rates than cisgender individuals. In 2022, lesbian, gay, or bisexual high school students used tobacco products at nearly one and a half times the rate of straight students, 21.5% and 14.1% respectively.[iii] Further, in 2022, 20.5% of transgender high school students used tobacco products, compared to 14.8% of their cisgender peers.[iv] In 2020 smoking rates among gay, lesbian, and bisexual adults in the US were significantly higher than rates for straight adults, 16.1% and 12.3% respectively.[v] Over half (54.5%) of lesbian or gay adults who smoke use menthol cigarettes, a higher rate than straight adults who smoke.[vi] There is limited data available on smoking rates among transgender adults; however, one study found higher smoking rates among transgender adults than cisgender adults.[vii]
Big Tobacco has targeted LGBTQ+ communities with a variety of deceptive marketing tactics for decades, and it has paid off in billions of dollars in sales for the tobacco industry while costing thousands of lives. In fact, LGBT adults spend over $2.6 billion on cigarettes each year.[viii] Starting in the 1990s Big Tobacco has targeted LGBTQ+ communities by:
Big Tobacco’s deceptive marketing practices, including using flavors such as menthol, continue to incentivize tobacco use among LGBTQ+ communities and other populations, causing these groups to shoulder a disproportionate share of the real cost of tobacco use. Smoking harms nearly every organ in the body and remains the number one cause of preventable death.[xvi] Smoking is the single largest contributing risk factor to cancer in the United States, increasing the risk of at least 12 cancers.[xvii]
[i] The Truth Initiative, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, American Heart Association and American Stroke Association, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Lung Association, Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A report entitled Broken Promises to Our Children: A State-By-State Look at the 1998 State Tobacco Settlement 19 Years Later. December, 2017.Available on-line at: https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/us/statereport.
[iii] Park-Lee E, Ren C, Cooper M, Cornelius M, Jamal A, Cullen KA. Tobacco Product Use Among Middle and High School Students — United States, 2022. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:1429–1435. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7145a1.
[iv] Park-Lee E, Ren C, Cooper M, Cornelius M, Jamal A, Cullen KA. Tobacco Product Use Among Middle and High School Students — United States, 2022. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2022;71:1429–1435. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7145a1.
[vii] Buchting FO, Emory KT, Scout, Kim Y, Fagan P, Vera LE, Emery S. Transgender Use of Cigarettes, Cigars, and E-cigarettes in a National Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine July 2017.
