Age and Pipe Smoking
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Kevin Godbee - Dec 7, 2016
- 2 min read
Dr. Michael Garr, Ph. D. aka "Doc Garr"
We have lots of anecdotal information about whether pipe smoking is on the increase or decrease. And we have anecdotal information about what age groups are more likely to smoke a pipe. What we are lacking is systematic information about the age distribution of pipe smoking across a number of years.
I use the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to provide some systematic information about pipe smoking. The NSDUH is a yearly survey that uses random sampling of the American population. The sample size varies each year but is typically around 55,000 respondents, which is a very large sample size. I examine the years in which the question of whether respondents smoked a pipe in the past month is asked. The NSDUH started to ask the question in 1999 and has asked the question every year since then.
First of all, the percentage of the overall population who smoked a pipe in the past month does not change much over the 15 years. Between 1999 and 2014 past month pipe smoking varies from 0.9% to 1.2%. In 2014, it was 1%. So in a population of 320 million people, about 3.2 million smoked a pipe in the past month.
I look at five age groups, although the survey looks at 17 age groups. I do this to make the chart simpler to examine. The five age groups are 12 – 17, 18 – 25, 26 – 49, 50 – 64, and 65 or older, in years. Below is the chart of past month pipe smoking and age.
To simplify matters, I calculate the 1999 – 2014 percent change in pipe smoking for each age group.
The -60.2% for the 65 and older age group may be an aberration. There was a precipitous drop in pipe smoking to 3.9% in 2014 from 6.7% in 2013. This was a large drop that I am assuming is somewhat erroneous. We will not know until the 2015 data becomes public. Probably it is somewhere closer to a decline of 30 – 35%.
Supporting the anecdotal information, we see that there is a rather large increase in past month pipe smoking by those ages 18 – 25. The youngest age group, 12 – 17, also saw an increase in pipe smokers. The older age groups all saw declines in the percentage of past month pipe smoking.
You can see in the chart that the 18 – 25 age group and the 65+ age group are fairly comparable. But starting in about 2005, the 18 – 25 age group significantly starts to increase and the 65+ age group starts to decrease.
We will have to wait to see what the future has in store for pipe smoking. We will have to wait and see what effect the FDA’s new draconian regulations on tobacco will have on pipe smoking. We pipe smokers are what the sociologist Max Weber terms a status group. We share a lifestyle. It appears that the younger generation is the carrier of this lifestyle into the future. Older pipe smokers must do their best to encourage this younger generation to continue our lifestyle. Hopefully, the increase in younger smokers will continue as they age into middle age and a new group of young adults will also take up the pipe.
"Doc" is currently president of The United Pipe Clubs of America and Pocono Intermountain Pipe Enthusiasts. In 2011 Doc won the national slow-smoke championship in Chicago and competed in the World Cup in Eindhoven, Netherlands, where he came in 69th out of 338 smokers. He has been a pipe smoker for almost 25 years. When he is not smoking a pipe, Doc is Professor of Sociology at Wilkes University. He also moonlights at El Humidor, Wilkes-Barre, PA, a tobacco store. |
Written by Kevin Godbee
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Soon now, supposedly, our neighborhoods will shift from grinning pumpkins, skeletons in various assortments, and zombies dashing about to pretty reindeer, angels, and flashing lights illuminating homes with sparkling stars and laughing, scurrying Santas. But, lest we forget, there is the turkey season, fancy pie aromas wafting from kitchens, and a national pardon of a big Tom Turkey. Remember, now, that only one of these holiday personalities is a pipe smoker. And that is the hefty, bearded fellow in a bright red suit sitting in a sleigh with a herd of deer hitched up and ready to streak across the globe, bringing tidings of joy and many presents. Ok, the scene is set for the next couple of months, right? So, before we get too far off the beaten path, let’s just take a deep breath of fresh autumn air, shall we? Ahh. That’s better, isn’t it? What’s got the Pundit in a snit is not all the Halloween spooks who came a-jostling for candy. Or the wild turkeys gobbling in the backwoods or all the fuss and feathers over the big one—Christmas. No, it is that we might need to take note of all the little things that mean so much to us. Like a good sunrise (seriously, Pundit has not gone all Pollyanna.) Mayhaps we need to appreciate more of what we have than what we have not. Or something like that. Like, a good pipe in the morning with coffee as the dawn brings us coolish weather now that we have flipped the calendar to autumn. But it also brings beautiful leaves that have become a spectacle of technicolor in the wind. It is the little things. The rereading of an enjoyable book and finding something you did not see or learn in the first go-round. Or a stunning phrase you commit to memory with the re-read, while smoking that favorite pipe. And you notice a superior puff that just seems to be different. It’s in the air and the seasons of meaningful little things. It’s aromatic! Or perhaps it is that sense of satisfaction knowing and appreciating you made it to another day. With the world in a kind of rinse-and-repeat history, reminiscent of a Shakespearean play, it is perhaps a good moment to remember some of Pipedom’s philosophers whose cogent thoughts brought light to clear a path in the mists of confusion and confounding opinions. Ok. No gloom and doom. Just some down-home thoughts. Think of times in the past when history was running off the rails. It took our pipe-smoking thinkers (the mind workers of the world) to speak of better pathways to more light. Think for a moment, with a pipe in hand, these wizards of the world and word: Albert Einstein, J. R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edwin Hubble, Bertrand Russell, C. S. Lewis, and Jean-Paul Sartre. All learned and enlightened. They offered wisdom instead of storms of meaningless roads to nowhere. All while smoking their pipes! Maybe especially with the help of their pipes in the art of thinking and philosophy. Recall the words of Mr. E=MC2 when he said, “I believe that pipe smoking contributes to a somewhat calm and objective judgment in all human affairs.” Amen and amen! Dealing with world-rattling events takes a calm and objective view of things, to the Pundit’s way of summing it up. You just don’t go messing around with quantum physics without a calm and objective approach, methinks. Or as the extraordinary physicist Robert Oppenheimer said after he and a team in the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos Labs developed a way to split atoms into bombs during World War II. “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds,” said Oppenheimer referring to the development of the first nuclear bombs dropped on Japan. It must be pointed out that Oppenheimer was more of a cigarette smoker than a pipe smoker. Nonetheless, pipes were part of his personality. 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A fact is not a truth until you love it—Shelby Foote. A parting thought: It is said that famed Southern author William Faulkner carried a packed pipe in a coat pocket wherever he went. That’s one effective way to deal with workday conflicts and confusion. A calm and objective judgment in our everyday human affairs, as the quantum man said.
Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 633. Our featured guest tonight is Jon David Cole. JD is the Owner/Tobacconist at The Country Squire in Jackson, MS, and the accompanying online store. We’ll have JD and Brian talking about what’s new at the store and in the business in general. At the top of the show, Brian will discuss tobacco growing, what happens to the leaf, and provide updated information on where tobacco is being gown today. Tobacco production originated in the United States and we were once the #1 producer. It’s quite different now.
Well there’s nothing like a touch of the plague to usher in the changing season. Leaving the airport just when the first advertisements for all things pumpkin spice began to appear—lattes, muffins, shampoos, trash bags, and myriad other concoctions—so, too, my ability to breathe freely disappeared. The unfortunate side effect of losing one’s sense of taste and smell for weeks is the utter inability to enjoy tobacco. Not that I consider myself an expert on anything but my own tastes, but be forewarned that this review was made with mildly impugned sensory equipment. Just when a comforting pipe was most needed, its comfort was denied. Be that as it may, the road to recovery found me limping along on one lung this past month, trying to wrest the particulars of two blends on offer from Sutliff: the latest 175th Anniversary blend, Silver Quarter, as well as their spooky seasonal Maple Shadows II. Silver Quarter is a new style on offer from Sutliff, their first coin-cut blend. 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Welcome to The Pipes Magazine Radio Show Episode 631. Our featured interview on tonight’s show is with pipe maker Dan Keller from Good Made Better. Dan is from South Dakota. Growing up working in the family hardware store where he was always finding solutions to fixing things, he ended up always wanting to make things. He now makes elegant handmade pens, pen holders, portable desks, blotters, blotting paper, book carry cases, and of course artisan pipes. At the top of the show we are continuing the virtual tour of Brian’s pipes with his “f#@k you pipes”.
Totally surprised by the 18-25 year-old cohort. I would have expected a slight increase. Older folks may fade in pipe smoking for unrelated health reasons, but the drop surprised me too. One of my pipe friends who lives in NYC/Queens/Sunnyside and has a daughter in her twenties, commented in a recent phone call that pipe smoking has really become fashionable again, and since fashion is frequently a function of the young, I guess this refers to the 18 to 25 year-old cohort.
Not really that surprising altogether, really. I was talking about this very thing with a local shop owner and he stated that pipe smoking is at a plateau overall. Myself, I have not smoked my pipes much over the past few years due to several factors. I’m picking them back up more now.
Nice data. It is surprising. “Fashion” could be a factor but I have yet to see even the slightest hint in anything I have seen. Then again,… I never have been the trendy type. I do suspect that there has been some strong influence from the “Lord of the Rings” type movies and “Wizards” and the such. There is an entire “cult” if you following this sort of thing. I do not. Still new,… renewed,… to pipe smoking,… I see a lot of Church Wardens. If you dig enough,.. many are the full wood stems and not just some briar version. I am a fan of the Church Warden and there are some fine long stem briars offered. It was my love of Church Wardens that led me to the whole Wizard “angle” of pipes. At any rate,… my 2 cents.
It would be interesting to relate the 18-25 data to the soaring price of cigarettes. Seems to me that the price of cigarette smoking, increasing like it has in the last ten years, may explain the 18-25 data.
Cortez,…. as a cigarette smoker as well,… 2 and 1/2 cartons can be rolled with the roll your own “pipe tobacco” and tubes for $23.00 U.S. (1# and 3 boxes of tubes). They had to change the cut of the cigarette tobacco I believe and now call it pipe tobacco. Otherwise,.. that same 2 1/2 would run around $150.00 in Ohio. But yes,… you do have a good point and I am sure that it factors in as well.