More people 'would date a smoker now'

• August 19, 2008
  
  
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  There is good news for smokers after a new survey has revealed that more people would be willing to date a person that smokes now compared to three years ago.
  
  An Ipsos-Reid survey of 884 Canadian adults for Lavalife in 2005 found that 56 per cent said that they would not date a smoker.
  
  However, when 6,313 adults were asked this year whether they would consider dating a smoker, only 47 per cent said that they would not (43 per cent of men and 51 per cent of women).
  
  Some experts have theorised that the reason for the shift is that people are now more open to who they date and don't want to put up unnecessary barriers.
  
  However, others claim that opinions have only changed because less people smoke in public since the smoking ban and non-smokers have simply forgotten what smoking is like.
  
  James Fowler, a professor at the University of California, San Diego, told the Ottawa Citizen: "The incidences of smoking are declining so much that people have fewer and fewer persistent, direct exposure to smokers.
  
  "The consequence is that when someone asks them in the abstract, 'Would you date a smoker,' it affects their answer."
  
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