A、Smoking is usually associated with poverty. B、Smoking is not as unhealthy as it seems. C、Smoking is the students’ best pastime

Cambridge, best known as the affluent university town crammed with leading academics, intellectuals and some of the nation’s brightest students, has been awarded a rather less enviable accolade -- the smoking capital of Britain. The typical household in Cambridge spends a staggering ￡2,183 on tobacco every year- the equivalent to smoking 25 cigarettes a day. By contrast, Bracknell, in Berkshire, is the most abstemious. There, households spend a mere ￡183 a year on tobacco, smoking an average of just two cigarettes a day.
    The figures are contained in a report, published this week, which examines spending habits by postcode across the UK. Why Cambridge should top such an unhealthy league table has baffled researchers. As John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health, tried to explain last week, smoking is the addiction of choice for Britain’s working classes and highest consumption is usually found in the poorest areas of the country -- three suburbs of Liverpool make the top 10. Students may be one answer to Cambridge’s position -- as anybody who has entered the university’s myriad common rooms and student bars and witnessed the dense fug of smoke may attest.
    Patrick Tate, principal researcher at CACI, the company behind the findings, said, "It is a weird anomaly. It doesn’t tell us why it is happening but perhaps it is to do with the number of students."