Teen Smokers Become Heavier Drinkers

Researchers have known for a long time that smokers tend to drink alcohol and drinkers tend to smoke cigarettes. Now, new research indicates that adolescents who smoke are more likely to go on to abuse alcohol than their non-smoking peers.

Richard Grucza is an epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He says he and his colleagues analyzed the data from more than 73,000 interviews collected over three years in U.S. government surveys. "We divided adolescents up according to how much they drink, so we put them in groups as light drinkers, moderate drinkers and heavy drinkers," he says. "We saw that regardless of how much they drank, the smokers always had substantially more problems with alcohol use and dependence than did the non-smokers."