Researchers Find a Heavy Marine Corps Smoking Habit (4/27) AMY NORTON c.1999 Medical Tribune News Service SAN DIEGO -- They're few, they're proud and they're smokers. More than one-third of U.S. Marines smoke cigarettes or use smokeless tobacco, according to Department of Defense (DOD) statistics that show Marines, more than any other branch of the service, need to be weaned from the habit, researchers reported here. The high prevalence of tobacco use among entering Marine recruits warrants a boot-camp intervention program, according to researchers from the Naval Medical Center and the University of California in San Diego. Based on the DOD statistics, a team led by Dr. Asha V. Devereaux surveyed 858 male Marine recruits to uncover the reasons for tobacco's allure. The researchers found that 41 percent of entering recruits were current smokers, despite the fact that 91 percent believed smoking had harmful consequences. Half said they smoked to ``calm their nerves''; 30 percent smoked because of boredom; 50 percent picked up the habit out of curiosity; and 28 percent put the blame on the influence of alcohol. All were high-school graduates, and half came from homes where someone smoked. Devereaux reported the survey findings Monday at a joint meeting of the American Lung Association and the American Thoracic Society. Marine recruits, said one lung-disease expert, clearly represent a target population for anti-smoking efforts - males in their late teen and early 20s. ``They know the health effects, but they smoke anyway,'' said Dr. Sidney Braman, a professor of medicine at Brown University in Providence, R.I. ``We need to do more in the way of prevention in specific groups like this.'' The California researchers agreed that the military would do well to intervene early in helping smokers kick the habit. In their report, Devereaux and colleagues noted that a 1988 study of Navy recruits suggested that, far from helping to prevent tobacco use, the military actually ``created'' smokers.