U.S. Cigarette Smoking Rates: Not Declining As Hoped

The past decade has seen Americans face a healthy dose of reality regarding cigarette smoking, as the American Lung Association and other groups have unleashed a media blitz of advertisements containing statistics and other truths about the dangers of cigarettes. Doctors have pushed drugs and other programs that can aid patients in their quests to quit the habit, and entire cities have banned smoking in public places. But despite the barrage of anti-smoking messages, the number of adults smoking in 2008 changed little from 2004.

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on November 12, 2009, was compiled from data in the 2008 National Health Interview Study and showed that 46 million Americans (20.6 percent) were regular cigarette smokers as compared to 20.9 percent in 2004. The miniscule decrease in the number of adults claiming the tobacco habit was nothing less than alarming to those who have worked diligently to spread the truth about the health hazards associated not only with smoking but second-hand smoke as well.

The CDC study corresponds with another study released only days prior from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Based on reports from the 2008 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the number of smokers varied throughout the 50 states. For example, West Virginia and Indiana claimed the highest percentage of smokers - both in the 26 to 27 percent rage, while Utah came through with only 9.2 percent of its population as smokers. In addition to state analyses, a breakdown of smoking patterns looked at the decade of 1998 through 2008 and found that though the ten year span produced an overall decline of 3.5 percent in the number of smokers, the number actually rose from 2007 (19.8 percent) to 2008 (20.6 percent).

The facts are clear and become starker with each passing year. More than 443,000 people die every year from cigarette smoke, a number that translates into the U.S. spending more than $96 billion in health care related to smoking-related diseases and the consequential deaths. The majority of the people who smoke are in the lower range of educational achievements, i.e. cigarette smoking is prevalent among 41.3 percent of people with a G.E.D., as opposed to 5.7 percent of those with a graduate degree.