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Adult smoking is at record low
A rate below 20 percent has more symbolic than commercial significance, tobacco analyst says
Journal Graphic by Cassandra Sherrill
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Published: November 15, 2008
Updated: 11/14/2008 11:55 pm
Smoking among U.S. adults hit a record low during 2007, with less than one in five lighting up.
Although breaking through the 20 percent threshold was applauded by anti-smoking groups last week, they acknowledged that an ambitious goal of a 12 percent adult-smoking rate by 2010 is not likely to happen.
The goal was set in November 2000 as part of the Healthy People 2010 project.
"If we want to see far more people quit smoking, we need expanded access to stop-smoking programs, continued progress in eliminating secondhand smoke exposure and ongoing investment in programs that work," said Dr. Matthew McKenna, the director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The agency reported that 43.4 million U.S. adults smoked in 2007, or 19.8 percent, compared with 45.3 million in 2006, or 20.8 percent. The rate essentially was unchanged from 2004 through 2006.
The peak of U.S. adult smokers was 53.5 million in 1983, according to U.S. government figures.
The number of adult men who smoke still exceeds women -- 22 percent of men smoke, compared with 17.4 percent of women. The number of white adult smokers was 21.4 percent, compared with 19.8 percent for blacks and 13.3 percent for Hispanics.
The report also found that the percentage of everyday smokers who have tried to quit smoking has dropped from 47 percent in 1993 to nearly 40 percent in 2007. Older smokers were less likely to quit than those ages 18 to 24.
"If, starting in 2009, all states were to fully implement tobacco-control programs at CDC-recommended levels of investment," McKenna said, "an estimated 5 million fewer people in this country would smoke within five years, and hundreds of thousands of premature tobacco-related deaths would be prevented each year."
Other health-advocacy officials said that about 80 percent of smokers who successfully quit cigarettes tend to do it "cold turkey" rather than through stop-smoking products or programs.
The CDC reported that from 2000 to 2004, at least 443,000 Americans died prematurely each year as a result of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke. It also found that smoking costs the nation $96 billion in health-care costs and $96.8 billion in productivity losses.
The decline of the U.S. adult- smoking rate to less than 20 percent comes at a time when U.S. tobacco manufacturers, particularly R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., are putting more emphasis on smokeless tobacco products. On the front lines of the migration are innovations from Reynolds -- such as Camel Snus, a spitless product; dissolvable Camel products that feature a pellet; a twisted stick; and a film strip for the tongue.
But health-advocacy groups, having won the day with bans on smoking in most public venues after a 16-year fight, are gearing up their efforts and rhetoric to try to prevent those products from taking root.
The debate is pitting more health-care and anti-smoking officials on both sides of the smokeless debate because it's not clear whether smokeless tobacco equals reduced risk, particularly involving cancer.
The decline in smoking also has major job implications for the manufacturers, who are struggling to find a balance between company size and consumer demand for their products.
Altria Group and Philip Morris USA said Tuesday that they were was cutting an unidentified number of jobs between now and February. Reynolds said on Sept. 9 that it was cutting 570 white-collar jobs between itself and its parent company, Reynolds American Inc., through early 2010.
"Just think how hard the tobacco majors are having to work to make any progress -- snus, moist tobacco, cutbacks in Richmond, reorganization at Reynolds," said Bruce Davidson, a tobacco analyst for Blue Oar Securities PLC of London. "This is an industry under pressure."
Davidson said that dropping below a 20 percent adult-smoker rate is "more of a symbolic milestone "rather than marking some sort of breakthrough a commercially important barrier."
David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds, said that company policy states "the best course of action for tobacco consumers concerned about their health is to quit."
Matthew Myers, the executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, used the study's results to push again for Food and Drug Administration regulation of the tobacco industry.
Myers also focuses on a significant increase in federal and state-tobacco taxes to reduce the number of adult smokers. There is growing expectation that Congress will pass early next year an expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance program, financed primarily through a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on cigarettes.
"We know how to win the fight against tobacco use," Myers said. "But we will not win it -- and our progress could even reverse -- without the political leadership to implement proven solutions at all levels of government."
■ Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com.
Lighting up less
The smoking rate among U.S. adults dropped in 2007, compared with 2006, in most age and socioeconomic categories.
Category '06 smoking rate '07 smoking rate
Men 23.9 percent 22.3 percent
Women 19 percent 17.4 percent
White 21.9 percent 21.1 percent
Black 23 percent 19.8 percent
Hispanic 15.2 percent 13.3 percent
Asian 10.4 percent 9.6 percent
Ages 19-24 23.9 percent 22.2 percent
Ages 25-44 23.5 percent 22.8 percent
Ages 45-64 21.8 percent 21 percent
Ages 65 and older 10.2 percent 8.3 percent
No high-school diploma 25.6 percent 22.7 percent
High-school diploma 23.6 percent 23.7 percent
Associate degree 21.2 percent 19.9 percent
Undergraduate degree 9.6 percent 11.4 percent
Graduate degree 6.6 percent 6.2 percent
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