Cigarette Smoking at the Hill: Playing with Globally Renowned Lethal Fire

Abstract

This study was conducted to assess how serious a problem smoking was among students at the University of Dar es Salaam. Undergraduate students who smoke were involved in the study. The participants in the study included 55 undergraduate students from different academic programs. Fifty three of the respondents were males and only two were females. The respondents were drawn from students who smoked cigarettes, by using snow ball sampling procedure. Information was collected through the interview method. The age of the respondents ranged from 18 to 31 years. The results showed that smoking was much more common to male than female students, and that some students started smoking at the age of ten. The majority of the students reported that their close friends and family members, such as fathers and brothers influenced them because they had smoked in their presence. Most of the respondents admitted that they were aware of the dangers of smoking and some had indeed already experienced health problems related to smoking. It was observed that students who smoked by and large also drank alcohol. Thus, if Tanzania is to be successful in her endeavour to combat poverty, serious measures needed to be taken to discourage cigarette smoking, so as to prevent death and unnecessary medical expenses. It was recommended among other things, that the government of Tanzania forbid all cigarette smoking advertisements; and resolutely prohibit/outlaw smoking in public places.