Smoking Rates Drop Below 20 Percent in U.S.
Health officials reported Thursday, the number of U.S. adults who smoke has dropped below 20 percent for the first time. Unfortunately, cigarettes still kill almost half a million people a year.
Forty-three million US adults were smokers in 2007, which amounted to a percentage point below the 2006 figure, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC reported smoking and secondhand smoke kill 443,000 people annually from cancer, lung disease, heart disease and other causes.
Smoking also burns a huge hole in the US economy because direct health care expenditures are at $96 billion and productivity losses equal $97 billion, according to the CDC.
"Even though we’ve come a long way, there’s a long way to go," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, director of the CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health.
U.S. health officials began tracking smoking rates in the 1960s, when U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a report on the health hazards of smoking in 1964.
Thomas Glynn of the American Cancer Society said the rate was now the lowest since just after World War I.
"We’ve begun to come full circle on this," Glynn said.
Glynn said smoking bans in public places, higher taxes that drive up prices, and more medications to help people quit, spurred the change.
The CDC said smoking causes at least 30 percent of cancer deaths, including more than 80 percent of lung cancer deaths. The report also found that 17 percent of women smoke compared to 22 percent of men. Whites smoked at higher rates than blacks or Hispanics.
"The tobacco industry is very good at creating confusion and misinformation. And the more education people have, the less likely they are to believe some of the myths and misinformation that the industry promulgates," McKenna said.
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