Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III a.k.a. 'Slim Shady')
(1972- )
American Hip Hop star
Cigar Use Among African American Youth - by Charyn D. Sutton
The 1999 National Youth Tobacco Survey conducted from September through October by the American Legacy Foundation in association with the CDC Foundation reported that "Cigar use was the second most preferred tobacco product used in middle school, with 6.1 percent of students reporting smoking cigars in the past month. African American middle school students (8.8 percent) were significantly more likely to smoke cigars than white students (4.9 percent)."
It is important to note that the actual survey questions did not differentiate between blunts -- in which the tobacco is removed and replaced by marijuana -- and other kinds of cigars like Black & Milds or Swisher Sweets that do contain tobacco. Also, there was no discussion of blunts in the section on cigars.
When you ask most young African Americans who smoke blunts if they smoke cigars, they will answer yes. If you ask them if they smoke TOBACCO, they may answer yes, but only if they smoke cigarettes or regular cigars in addition to blunts. If they smoke ONLY blunts, they are likely to answer no, because they see blunts as tobacco-free since they physically remove the tobacco inside.
There is a clear distinction for African American youth between blunts (which they consider large marijuana joints rolled in tobacco leaf as a convenience) and other cigars and cigarillos. White youth, in comparison, are less likely to have their marijuana use categorized incorrectly as cigar use because their preferred method of smoking marijuana is in traditional joints, using top paper. (The popularity of White rapper Eminem has increased the use of blunts among White youth, but the practice is still relatively uncommon.)
This distinction between marijuana blunts and tobacco cigars is critical to an in-depth understanding of smoking behavior among teenagers. Furthermore, it begins to explain some of the anomalies in the statistics which have Black middle school students smoking far more cigars than White middle school students (8.7 percent vs. 4.7 percent), even though the marijuana use statistics are roughly equivalent.
High school and middle school survey results of tobacco use among U.S. adolescents also support the "reverse gateway" theory that has many Black youth smokers beginning with marijuana (viewed as safer and more natural than commercially processed tobacco) and moving to use of cigarettes (especially mentholated brands) later. This is in stark contrast to White youth who are more likely to smoke cigarettes first and move to marijuana later, if at all. In a series of focus groups conducted by university-based Prevention Centers funded by the CDC's Office on Smoking & Health, smoking initiation beginning with marijuana rather than tobacco was mentioned often by Black teenagers but never by White teenagers, demonstrating a distinct difference in use patterns.
Unfortunately, blunt use is not being tracked in most surveys and information on blunt use among African American youth. As a result, information on blunts tends to be available only through anecdotal sources and focus groups. The New York Times article entitled "Youth Tie Tobacco Use to Marijuana" by Jane Gross (April 22, 1998) is one of the few discussions of this phenomenon that has appeared in print.
The Onyx Group - June 2001.
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