New CDC data suggests cigarette education is working. Photo by FDA. |
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WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Americans are kicking the habit in record numbers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the percentage of adults who smoke cigarettes is at an all-time low in the United States. From 2005 to 2008, the number of smokers in the U.S. dropped from from 45.1 million to 42.1 million. Today, just 17.8 percent of Americans over the age of 18 smoke cigarettes -- a record low.
The annual report, released Wednesday by the CDC, found the percentage of admitted smokers who smoke cigarettes daily is also falling. Additionally, smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes per day. Health experts greeted such details with lukewarm enthusiasm.
"Though smokers are smoking fewer cigarettes, cutting back by a few cigarettes a day rather than quitting completely does not produce significant health benefits," Brian King, a senior scientific advisor with the CDC's Office on Smoking and Health, remarked in a statement released by the CDC.
But overall, the news is positive, and researcher Norman H. Edelman says it's proof education efforts and cigarette taxes are working.
"People are learning more and more about the terrible effects of smoking," Edelman, a professor of preventive and internal medicine at Stony Brook University, told Newsweek. "People are just understanding how deadly cigarettes are, and it's become an expensive habit."
The study, which used data from CDC's National Health Interview Survey, also found 70 percent of those who still smoke want to quit.
But while smoking rates are going down among adults, some tobacco products are proving increasingly popular among young people. Recent research has shown e-cigarettes and hookah usage rates are growing among teens and adolescents.
"We have no idea of what the long-term effects [of e-cigarette smoking] will be. We don't think there is nearly enough data to assume that they're safer than cigarettes," Edelman said. "We're concerned about e-cigarettes as a way for youngsters, teenagers, to be introduced into nicotine addiction."
