"Casual" smokers may have high-risk drinking habits

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Young adults who smoke on a less-than- daily basis appear to be more likely than non-smokers to have a drinking problem, a new study suggests.

Yale University researchers found that among nearly 6,000 Americans, those who smoked on a fairly "casual" basis were more likely to binge-drink than non-smokers were. Moreover, they were at greater risk of alcohol abuse than either non-smokers or daily smokers.

Past studies have found that casual smokers often smoke when they drink, and many say they think that smoking enhances the effects of alcohol -- helping to "bring on the buzz." Similarly, drinking has been shown to boost smokers' enjoyment of their habit.

The current findings suggest that efforts to "reduce the pairing" of smoking and drinking could be helpful, the researchers report in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

"Currently, the majority of states have enacted smoke-free bans that extend to smoking in venues where alcohol is served," researcher Dr. Sherry A. McKee, an associate professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, said in a statement released by the journal.

"Research indicates that smoking bans can reduce alcohol consumption in bars, particularly among heavy drinkers," she said.

Dr. Saul Schiffman, a professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh who was not involved in the study, agreed that such smoking policies may be beneficial.

By removing the link between smoking and drinking, smoking bans "may also disrupt developmental trajectories toward problem drinking and heavy smoking, and thereby yield a long-term public health benefits as well," he said in the statement.

McKee and her colleagues based their findings on the results of a national health survey that included 5,838 adults between the ages of 18 and 25. Of those respondents, 25.2 percent were daily smokers and 7.2 percent were casual smokers and 67.6 percent didn't smoke.

Casual smokers were more likely than non-smokers to binge-drink, and had an elevated risk of alcohol abuse. Overall, casual smokers were 16-times more likely than non-smokers to be a "hazardous drinker," described as occasional bingers or generally drank more than experts recommend.

That was more than twice the risk attributed to daily smoking, which was linked to a seven-time greater likelihood of hazardous drinking.

"We anticipated that the associations between alcohol use and smoking would be greatest in non-daily smokers," McKee said, "but were surprised by the degree of the associations."

This link was not just limited to college students, the researchers found, even though college students were more likely to be casual, rather than daily, smokers.

"Together," McKee and her colleagues conclude, "these results add to a growing body of research suggesting that casual smoking confers possibly significant health risks, particularly by increasing hazardous drinking."

SOURCE: Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, December 2008.