• The Center
• Health
• Smoke Free
• Fact Sheet

The facts can’t hide behind a smokescreen.

• Members of the GLBT community are between 40% and 70% more likely to smoke than non-GLBT individuals.
• Lesbians smoke approximately three times more than straight women.
• Approximately 38–50% of GLBT youth, smoke compared to 28–35% of non-GLBT youth.
• Tobacco use, which is responsible for heart disease, strokes, and many cancers, is the single most preventable cause of death in the United States.
• A 2006 study conducted among nine Designated AIDS Treatment Centers (DACS) and five adult day healthcare centers found that 59.4% of patients living with HIV/AIDS were smokers. That’s almost three times the smoking rate of the general population!
• Each year, more deaths result directly from tobacco use than from HIV, illegal drug use, alcohol use, motor vehicle injuries, suicides, and murders combined.
• A recent study at the University of Minnesota showed that more than 50% of the patients in a transgender health clinic who received hormone therapy were current or past smokers, and the rate of current smokers among the patients was almost double the smoking rate found in the general population.
• Estrogen use in women who smoke has been linked to such conditions as pulmonary embolism, heart disease, and stroke, as well as to adverse liver effects. It is likely that these effects are also present in transgender women.
• In the mid-1990s, tobacco control professionals discovered documents that revealed the tobacco industry’s marketing campaign, “Project SCUM” (Sub Culture Urban Marketing). This campaign was an aggressive attempt to increase smoking and brand loyalty of homeless people and lesbian, gay, and bisexual adults in San Francisco’s Castro district.